Jeweler Maksud “Trax” Agadjani Is Looking Beyond the Diamond District

ONE37pm: You appeared in Uncut Gems as Yussi. What has it been like in the past few months since the movie was released? Has it led to new business?

Maksud Agadjani: Of course.

Has it led to attention, people noticing you?

Agadjani: I did a lot of stuff before that, and they all had the same effect. If it influences people and gets them to know me and my brand better, then it has a positive effect. I know how to capture that positive effect and monetize it. I’ve been doing business for a long time here in the Diamond District, so when new business opportunities open up, I try to take care of it as quickly as possible.

How did you end up in the movie?

Agadjani: It all started really with me marketing this business. I developed this business, and I knew that I had to market this business and grow it. So what I did was I pursued a couple of DJs that led me to Tekashi69. Tekashi69 turned into more marketing publicity for me, and then when you would search “New York jeweler,” that video of me and Tekashi69 having a little...whatever. 

The studio searched “New York jeweler” for their movie, and I popped up. They gave me a call, and I came down, I auditioned. It was good timing and good luck, really.

What was it like auditioning? 

Agadjani: For me, it was a piece of fucking cake because I knew it was in the interest of my business. After 15 years in the Diamond District, to prance and audition for five to ten minutes or 30 minutes was like licking my fingers after taking cookies out of a cookie jar, bro. It was nothing.

How was it working on the set with a cast that featured Adam Sandler, Kevin Garnett and Julia Fox?

Agadjani: Once in a lifetime. It was grueling because you’re standing on your feet for ultimately eight hours behind the showcase. You’re doing the same scene over and over, but you’re doing it with Kevin Garnett over here, Adam Sandler over there, Julia Fox over here and a variety of interesting types of people on a soundstage in Long Island. People are paying attention to you, so it’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience that I’ll never forget.

You must’ve had so many meta moments being a jeweler acting in a movie about a jeweler. Can you look back on and think what has encapsulated your experiences as a custom jeweler in the Diamond District?

Agadjani: Wheeling and dealing. You gotta move this watch over here, tell this guy he’ll see him tomorrow. Maybe not as cruel as [Howard Ratner] was to those vendors, giving them fake watches and doing a bunch of bullshit. For me, having to wheel and deal and take merchandise from one vendor, put it on display, sell it. And then I might be able to pay another vendor whose jewelry hasn’t sold yet, but then when they sell, I do this, do that. If it has to go down like that, it has to go down.

So that’s the process?

Agadjani: Yeah, you have to wheel and deal. The values are so high here; you can get a little cash flow. You can sell a Rolex for $45,000 that costs you $45,000, but if you have two weeks to pay for that Rolex to the vendor that means you just got a loan for $45,000 for two weeks. Now, are you going to be able to capitalize on that? I will.

What was the struggle like in those 15 years of building your business to where it’s at now?

Agadjani: Those 15 years have been some of the most difficult things that I could have thrown myself against and not particularly because it should have been that way. So I’ll tell you how it exactly went down for me from beginning to end. I photographed a ring, and the [local jeweler] says it costs me $750, and I’m like, “Damn $750, that’s a lot of money for a fucking ring.” So I photographed it, and I put it up for the same $750. I sold it because I just wanted to sell it. See if it sells. I didn’t even want to make any money.

I sold it. I had to pay the eBay fees, which was like $120 out of my pocket, but I came, and I gave the $750 cash, and I took the ring. I shipped it, and I had the first transaction under my belt, and the [jeweler] took me seriously because I gave him the $750 for it. He gave me a fair price, and I sold it, and so on and so forth. I was in business right then and there.

I was a jeweler for that first transaction. And then I had to learn the jewelry business, learn where [the jeweler] bought the jewelry, learn how to manufacture the jewelry, learn how to get the diamonds, source the diamonds, set the diamonds, hire employees, hire salespeople, open up an office. And all of that is straightforward, and it could’ve been done much easier, but it wasn’t easy for me as a kid. With the type of people I had around me, there was not a lot of support and not a lot of motivation.

I stumbled along the way. And then, when the economy crashed, I was in a weak position because my friends left a business that I was relying on because we had disagreements and stuff like that. I had to take losses and rebuild and do all these types of complicated things. And the economy and the mortgage crisis and gold prices and wards. So I took a lot of hits and bruises, and I’m thankful for every single one of them more than I’m thankful for any dollar I’ve made because it made me from a boy and into a shrewd business person.

What was the biggest obstacle that you found in that stretch that you experienced?

Agadjani: Well, the obstacles…there’s a lot of stories, man. The obstacles are always with people. My assumption that people will have the sense to do something in a common mutual interest because it just makes sense to do so was a wrong assumption. People are doing dumb things. They’re doing short-term things. Short-term gratification rather than working and building a business, they’d rather steal two, three pieces and rip it off and get away with it.

That was a very difficult revelation that I had to look into somebody’s heart and find out who they really are fairly quickly by their behavior in a 30-minute, 40-minute conversation. I’ll be able to determine where somebody’s at and where they’re going in life essentially. And that is the only way I’m going to be able to be successful with growing a company or anybody else for that matter.

You involve yourself with the wrong people; they’ll drag you straight to hell. And I’ll give you one example specifically. I had two people working for me, two girls that were working for me in my company. So I received a letter in the mail [and] one individual saw that letter and put it in the trash. The other individual walked past the trash, saw that letter in the trash, took it out of the trash and got me the $700,000 loan that that letter was offering. And I had $700,000 to grow my business.

So think about it this way. One person is taking your opportunity, your life, your future, looking at it and saying, “Ah, this fucking guy doesn’t need that,” and putting it in the trash. And another person is going past the trash seeing that opportunity, taking it out and handing it to you. Now, who do you want to surround yourself with?

Do you remember that first big break where you sold to a customer that would help spread your business with their influence?

Agadjani: Yeah, there was. I had one customer that spent about $450,000 with me. That really came through and came in handy. He popped out, and he had a lot of money that he inherited let’s say and that happened periodically. Big customers, big players, spend big money. And that saved the day. I can’t tell you how many times. I had a lottery winner; I had it all.

Working with celebrities, how important do you see building those relationships when you’re selling them jewelry? How much impact does that have on your business?

Agadjani: It has a big impact. Influence and the prestige of doing business somewhere…The jewelry business is about who’s your jeweler-type shit. They want to have that experience, “Oh, I got this from so and so.”

When somebody shows you something, and the other person doesn’t know what it is, it doesn’t have that desired effect. It could be a priceless diamond, or it could be something like that, but unless you say—and this is most people—“I got it from Tiffany, I got this here, I got this there.” It doesn’t have the meaning that it’s supposed to have for them. So, the brand is the material.

You mentioned the Tekashi69 incident. And that it did well for you in terms of garnering attention. What was it like working with him initially before the social media incident?

Agadjani: That was an unforgettable experience as well because I met these guys in my office upstairs. And they are offering me to do some marketing, but all this gangster shit is going on. They were really trying to rob me or play me, and I was trying to use them for marketing. I was going to try to use them for marketing, and they were going to try to use me for some jewelry.

And I had to jump on my motorcycle with a backpack full of jewelry, go down to Brooklyn where he was living at the time. Pop in with his crazy little situation that they were dealing with. His life was going upside-down, inside-out, and I was just sitting there on the couch watching how he was moving and watching what he was doing. Eating Popeyes' chicken and having a stripper come over while I’m sitting there with Shotti trying to discuss the business deal [laughs]. And we’re peeking out the window to see if the feds are out there or if there are shooters coming for him. It was fun.

Going back a bit, was this something you ever envisioned yourself doing when you were growing up? You moved here at seven years old?

Agadjani: Yeah, seven years old. I just wanted to make money. When I came to America, and I went to my first day of school, and it was in second grade, everybody already got their normal start. I came in as an immigrant from Azerbaijan after the school year had already started. No orientation. 

I remember my first lunch. I went down to the lunchroom, and I’m seeing kids pop open their lunchboxes and they have juices and they have this and I have that. I had a plastic bag with a sandwich in it, and that wasn’t a great feeling. You don’t have anything. Everyone’s got something, or they’re getting along and you’re out there like some outcast, some have-not who doesn’t speak English. And you feel like you could take a bite out of this world, so you figure out how to start it and how to pull it off. 

Do you look back at those moments now with where you’re at?

Agadjani: Everything that was taken from me was really given to me as it turns out, if you’re strong enough. All of those moments and all of those difficult experiences gave me the opportunity not to be some little kid who just wants something and wants to fit in and is just playing along.

It lit a real fire in me, so all of those obstacles were really doing me a favor because I overcame them all. Now I have confidence and the wisdom to be able to secure the rest of my life. That’s a big gift.

For the future, what do you envision for Trax? Anything you want to expand into?

Agadjani: Everything. We’re doing media. Trax News. Fashion, we’re doing art. Just dabbling all over the place. We’re doing comedy. Getting to learn every one of these fields is what I’m doing. I’m educating myself on that. Seeing who I want to work with and how. And once I have the capital to invest in it and try and get it going, I will.

Is there a metric or statistic that means the most to you in terms of success?

Agadjani: Profit, sales, followers. All those things are great, but when I wake up in the morning. I might not wake up in the morning, I might wake up at 12:30 in the afternoon, I know my business is running. 

My employees are here that we’re conducting business, that we’re selling jewelry, that we’re making jewelry. I take my time. I drink my tea. I stare out my window. I play with my cats. I get dressed and I come to work. I’m walking through the door whenever I want because I built a business that works for me and now I have a quality of life where I can enjoy it the way I want to.