I make up to $100,000 a month asking strangers for a tour of their apartment on TikTok. I'm not doing this just to make money — seeing how people live fascinates me.

• Caleb Simpson is a content creator with millions of followers across Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.
• His most popular video format is asking strangers what they pay in rent and if he can tour the place.
• He now makes up to $100,000 a month from brand deals and payouts from the platforms themselves.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Caleb Simpson, a 31-year-old content creator in New York City. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I make videos where I go up to people on the street, ask them how much they pay for rent, and then ask, "Can I get a tour of your apartment?"

I was making videos for seven years before this format started to take off. At one point, I was trying to find the best slice of pizza in New York City, but the videos never blew up.

Last year when I was trying to think of new content to make, one of my YouTuber friends told me "make what you want to see." I was watching a man-on-the-street video someone had made at the time and I wanted to see more about that person's life. It was a light-bulb moment for me: What if I asked for a tour of their apartment?

The first day I went out to try the apartment question last summer, I walked around Washington Square Park and the Flatiron district. I didn't have much luck — people pretty much laughed at me. Then I decided to try in Brooklyn, I found someone who said yes, and I made my first video.

Eight months later, I have 7.1 million followers on TikTok, 1.1 million followers on Instagram, and more than 2 million subscribers on YouTube. I've shot videos in New York, Miami, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Here's how I turned asking for apartment tours on social media into my full-time job.

Building trust

I wake up at 6:30 a.m. and the first thing that I do is a cold plunge. Then I get a workout in, meet my friends for coffee, write emails, make phone calls, and do some editing and posting. In the afternoon, I head out to shoot a video.

Since the videos have gotten more popular, more people have started saying yes. In New York, around one in 10 people I ask will be familiar with my content. I still get nervous every time, and it's still a mind game. I have to run up and ask the person right away before I psych myself out and overthink if it's the right person.

My filming process is very spontaneous. I still go up to random people on the street, but I get a lot of direct messages from people offering their place. I also have a Google Form, and I find other people through my social groups.

Barbara Corcoran, who founded the New York City real-estate firm The Corcoran Group, contacted me in November and was my first high-profile collaborator. Since then, I've worked tirelessly to connect and pitch myself to high-profile talent. PR people are not hard to work with, and timing, persistence, and the value you bring to the table are everything.

One of my more recent videos was about this woman named Nikki, who lives in a tiny apartment. Once it started gaining popularity, national publications contacted her. She declined them all and told me she didn't want random people coming in to film her life, she just wanted to do it with me. That's when it really clicked for me that there's a separation between a big company and someone like me, who's just a person on TikTok.

Expanding into brand deals

It wasn't until a few months into creating my apartment series that I started making money from it. Before it changed its revenue model, YouTube used to send out bonuses, kind of like the TikTok Creator Fund. My friend told me about it in November, and three days later I got an email saying I made $9,000.

February was my biggest month so far — I made a little over $100,000, which mostly came from brand deals, other than about $3,500 from TikTok and $1,100 from Instagram.

With brands, I would rather build a relationship over time than get paid to promote a bad product. I try to do one brand deal a month. Any brands that make products that can live inside a home are a good match, which is basically any brand. I also work with brands in real estate.

I'm very careful about not selling out — I don't want to come off as this guy who's doing this thing just to make money. I want the brands I work with to be aligned with my core values. For example, it's important to me to be able to share people's stories from all walks of life — from Corcoran's $10 million apartment to someone who lives in a van.

Dealing with the response

I've been getting comments recently that say things like, "At first I thought it was a cool idea stopping random people on the street. Now it's just one big promotional tool for this guy's rich friends." I do post some videos with my friends and acquaintances, but the way I look at it is I'm not going to be able to please everybody. I'm just making videos that I enjoy with people who I want to make videos with.

The funny thing is that if I film somebody who everybody really loves, like E.G. Daily, who's the voice of Tommy Pickles from "Rugrats" and Buttercup from "The Powerpuff Girls," it's all positive in the comments. But if I collaborate with an "influencer," that's not the case.

There's this narrative that influencers are online to make money and a celebrity isn't — but celebrities also have incentives to be online. My thinking is, if you had this opportunity, wouldn't you want to go meet the people that you've always liked on the internet?

The show has also actually helped a lot of people who have been featured find opportunities, like job offers or offers to buy their art. Almost everyone I've interviewed has seen a boost in their social profiles after being featured. When I first created this series, I did it to connect with people. Now the people I connect with get an opportunity to shine.

Overall, though, I enjoy making this content because I, along with my viewers, am so fascinated by how other people live.