Dhar Mann

Dharminder "Dhar" Mann (born May 29, 1984) is an American entrepreneur and film producer. He is the founder of Dhar Mann Studios, a video production company that creates short scripted videos primarily distributed on platforms such as YouTube. The content is aimed at a young audience and often includes narratives with moral lessons conveyed through plot reversals. The studio produces and finances its content independently and reports a combined following of over 136 million across social media platforms as of July 2025.

In 2010, Mann and stockbroker Derek Peterson founded the weGrow store that sold hydroponics marketed for growing medical marijuana. weGrow was closed two years later amid lawsuits between the business partners. In 2013, Mann was convicted of defrauding the city of Oakland, California, through his real estate company MannEdge Properties.

Dharminder Mann was born on May 29, 1984, to Surinder Mann and Baljit Singh Mann, who emigrated from India to the United States. The Singh family owns Friendly Cab, a taxi cab operator based in Oakland, California. They have owned several local real estate companies since 1980, and more than 130 properties.

Mann recalls growing up in a one-bedroom Bay Area apartment which was shared with three other families. As his parents were focused on managing their company, he has said that rather than "give me their time, they gave me money to do things".

At the age of nineteen, Mann started a real estate company and founded other, often failed, companies within the decade including ventures in luxury car rental services and mortgage refinancing.

Mann founded weGrow, a retailer of cannabis-growing hydroponics, with former stock broker Derek Peterson in January 2010. Mann and Peterson rented a supply store in Oakland to sell hydroponics equipment, and aimed to open franchises in eight other states. In early 2011, the weGrow store was closed and Peterson filed lawsuits against the company, citing unpaid debts. He accused Mann of running a "hydroponzi scheme" in a Mother Jones interview. A spokesman for Mann said that Peterson fabricated the allegations in retaliation for Mann's decision to downsize their partnership; Mann successfully countersued Peterson for a cash settlement and stocks in Peterson's own company.

In 2012, Mann was charged with thirteen felony counts of fraud for allegedly defrauding a city beautification program while operating his real estate company MannEdge Properties in 2008 and 2009. Prosecutors reduced the charges to five felony counts in August 2013, and later that year Mann pled no contest to the five counts. He was sentenced to five years of probation and ordered to pay a $10,000 fine and restitution. Mann told The New York Times in 2021 that the conviction was later expunged.

In 2015, Dhar Mann founded LiveGlam, a cosmetics subscription company that initially offered online makeup tutorials in collaboration with beauty influencers. The business, launched with a small investment, later expanded under Mann and Creative Director Laura Avila to reach an international audience.