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Russell Brunson & Iman Gadzhi: The Two Hosts of the Side Hustle Summit
The most interesting thing about the Side Hustle Summit isn't the topic. It's the pairing. These two built nine-figure audiences in almost opposite ways, and September 6–13, 2026 is the first time they teach on the same virtual stage.
Russell Brunson: the funnel architect
Russell Brunson co-founded ClickFunnels in 2014 and bootstrapped it past $100M in annual recurring revenue without outside funding. Before that he spent a decade selling everything from potato-gun DVDs to supplements, which is where his obsession with sales funnels started.
He's the author of three of the most-read marketing books of the last decade: DotCom Secrets, Expert Secrets and Traffic Secrets. His live-event track record includes Funnel Hacking Live (a decade running), the 5 Day Lead Challenge, and the AI Secrets Challenge earlier in 2026. The official event page leans on two of his numbers: people he's taught have generated a claimed $10.4 billion online, and a wall in his office tracks 1,784 who've made over a million dollars using his frameworks. Nobody in the industry has run more launch-format virtual events, and it shows in the production quality.
What he brings to the summit: offer construction, storytelling frameworks (the Perfect Webinar, the Epiphany Bridge), and two decades of data on what converts strangers into customers.
Iman Gadzhi: the audience-native operator
Iman Gadzhi dropped out of school at 17 to run a social media agency, then built his name teaching other young people to do the same. Today the official event page bills him as founder of Consulting.com — which claims over 23,000 clients — with a portfolio of companies past $100 million in revenue.
In 2025 he became co-owner of Whop, the marketplace where thousands of digital side hustles (reselling communities, trading groups, SaaS tools, courses) process their payments — over $4 billion of them to date. That gives him something most gurus don't have: live data on which internet side hustles actually generate income right now.
He's also run this exact play before: three previous free events teaching beginners to make money online, with tracked attendee results of $8.9M, then $15M, then $31M — the $55.6M total the official page leads with. What he brings to the summit: distribution to a younger audience, blunt positioning, and the Whop ecosystem where a side hustle can go from idea to first sale inside a week.
Why this pairing matters
Brunson's audience skews 30–55, business-owner, email-first. Gadzhi's skews 18–30, creator-economy, video-first. The overlap is small, which means each host is effectively introducing the other to a new market. Launch events live or die on reach, and this one has two distribution machines behind it instead of one.
It also hints at what the paid program will look like: Brunson frameworks for offers and funnels, executed on Gadzhi-era platforms. If that's what ships, it would be a genuinely new curriculum rather than a reheat of either host's old material. We'll verify that in our Side Hustle Summit review once the program contents are announced.
The guest speakers
The official event page also confirms three guest speakers joining during the week. All three are proven stage names from the ClickFunnels and motivational-speaking worlds:
Myron Golden
Consultant · AuthorContracted polio as an infant, started as a garbage collector, then spent 30+ years becoming one of the most respected sales teachers in business. Wrote From the Trash Man to the Cash Man and B.O.S.S. Moves; holds ClickFunnels' Two Comma Club X award ($10M+ generated).
Eileen Wilder
Sales coach · AuthorA former pastor and writer with no business background. After a ministry transition in 2017 forced her to build an income fast, she started with a $297 offer and scaled it into a million-dollar business within two years. Has crossed $1M in sales in a single day, twice.
Eric Thomas
Motivational speakerDropped out of high school, spent two years homeless in Detroit, took 12 years to finish his degree, then became one of the most watched motivational speakers on earth. Works with NBA, NFL, MLB and MLS teams and has consulted for Nike, GE, AT&T and UPS.