Puia Shamsossadati is the founder of This Is A Man’s World, an account devoted to inspiring and motivating people to achieve their dreams through highly-curated photos and videos. With over 2 million followers, this account is one of the most popular inspirational accounts out there. But how did he do it? Shamsossadati lives in Sweden but hails from Iran. His family left his home country during the Iran-Iraq war, at the age of 14. His parents, who both had good-paying jobs back in Iran, were unable to find something that would provide an equivalent income. They lacked the language or skills necessary in Sweden, but they were happy to be out of their beloved, yet war-torn country.  Bucking the desires of his family to become a doctor and fill a traditional role in Sweden, Shamsossadati instead followed his passion for design and engineering, ultimately developing a background in industrial design. Obsessing over programs like Photoshop and 3D CAD, Shamsossadati seemed to perfectly prime himself for the Instagram platform. But you might be asking yourself, “Why the dot in the name thisisamans.world?” The answer will actually surprise you. Shamsossadati had originally started the account under “thisisamansworld,” without the dot, but after reaching over 100,000 followers, Instagram pulled the account. It seems that the account had unknowingly violated some Instagram terms and conditions while posting pictures of women. For a week or two, Shamsossadati was extremely disheartened. He had poured an enormous amount of work and effort into the account, but was left with nothing when it was pulled. After the depression subsided, determination took its place. He reached out to other accounts on the platform that he had already developed a relationship with such as, The Billionaire’s Club and Dan Blizerian, who helped him get a large majority of his followers back. But the most interesting part of Shamsossadati’s journey, and something that not many others know about him, is that he is the founder of Golden Concepts, a high-end, luxury customizer of iPhones. Dipped into lustrous 24k gold, and offered with options that include custom engraving and diamond-encrusting, Golden Concepts carved (quite literally) a niche for itself in a market that largely didn’t exist in the past.  The most mind-bending part of this is that he launched this business after only about one week of research. Like other successful individuals, he decided and acted quickly, but with the advantage of growing the business through his already-established network of millions of followers. As an industrial designer, he even went as far as designing the packaging and boxing that truly makes receiving and unwrapping one of his phones a luxury experience in-and-of itself. Today, Golden Concepts phones start at $4,995. However,Shamsossadati tells me that phones go up in price from there. The most expensive phone he’s sold was a $25,000 diamond-encrusted phone made for a Russian businessman who he says wants to remain anonymous. That’s just a glimpse of the type of clientele he has. Everyone from celebrities to the Saudi Royal Family have contacted him for phones. So the question then remains is, how did he do it? How did he manage to build up such a large following on Instagram, and to subsequently launch a multi-million-dollar business with next to zero dollars spent on advertising and marketing? It took him 3 years to reach 2 million followers, and in that time he’s connected with some of the most important people in the world and received access to a world of opulence and luxury unbeknownst to him before. What he found that worked the best was when other people with similar profiles gave him a shout-out. That’s how his numbers climbed the fastest. In the beginning, he did comment on other popular feeds, but only for a short time. His feed picked up steam due to the high-quality content in the form of pictures and inspirational thoughts and ideas that would help people achieve their dreams. While it sounds simple, it’s far from it. He’s spent thousands of hours curating his content, editing photos and networking with people. It didn’t happen overnight.

Gil Antolin is the founder of Luxury World Traveler. His account, which has reached a staggering 2.2 million followers, is one of the most sought-after and talked-about accounts in the luxury travel segment on Instagram. The best part? Antolin has built an entire businessand content channel on the one thing that he’s loved to do the most in his life — travel. Within a brief three-year period, he has managed to amass this enormous following while also launching Luxwt, a sister content channel to help handle some of the influx of advertising requests he’s been receiving. Antolin tells me that he has about 40 Luxwt prime members that travel to destinations, all-expenses paid by upscale hotels and villa companies, with the promise to produce content that would be solely owned by Antolin’s Luxury World Traveler, while helping to promote the places in question on his feed. These prime members promise to produce a certain amount of content and share it on Instagram in exchange for the privilege of traveling and staying for free. However, all things begin considered, I wondered how Antolin built such a large network on Instagram, and subsequently launched Luxwt in the process. What he tells me surprised me. Similar to Alex Jimenez, the founder of The Yacht Guy, another really popular travel profile that hasn’t quite hit the million-follower mark, it was a long-time coming. Antolin spent a considerable amount of his time and resources searching for high-quality, high-definition photos of places he longed to visit. When he found out about the Maldives and its shimmering turquoise waters and white-sugary-sanded beaches replete with exotic palm groves, he was hooked. Antolin spent hours on Sunday evenings and every opportunity he could get searching for the best travel photos he could source in order to post them throughout the upcoming week. He spent his time connecting with photographers and hotels for permission to use the photos, and in turn, built up a fairly-significant network in the process. In the beginning, he wasn’t focused on doing this for business purposes. All Antolin wanted to do was share the best travel photos he could find. But when he started building some momentum and thousands upon thousands of people started following his account, that’s when he thought he might really have something here. What started out as a passion project, turned into something that went far beyond his wildest dreams. Today, he tells me, he spends weeks and months at a time on the road, traveling and staying for free at the best destinations in the world, in the best hotels and suites that money can buy. He gets to travel in private jets, superyachts, ride around in exotic cars, and meet the who’s who in the world wherever he might be. In the process, Antolin has not only created a business that could potentially be sold for millions of dollars, but he’s also amassed terabytes of exquisite photos and vides of the world’s best destinations for use in an upcoming project. However, it all started with his desire to spread value in the form of stunning photos and information about the world’s most highly-sought-after destinations.

Jason Stone, the founder of Millionaire Mentor, is as confident as is he passionate about the work he’s doing. Millionaire Mentor, his Instagram account, was primarily born out of his desire and necessity to inspire others to reach for their dreams, a common theme amongst some of the most successful Instagramers.