The growth of Johnny Hilbrant’s PE Guy character over the past year has been, to borrow one of his favorite phrases, “substantial.”
What had started as a joke has turned into a real business, one that PE Guy might even want to invest in. While people in finance might complement Hilbrant on “his little skits,” they might be surprised to learn just how much money he’s taking home — $1 million in the past year.
Hilbrant, who is based in the suburbs of Boston, walked us through how he makes money, why he chose to manage himself, and how he stays sane while parodying finance bros.
The conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Business Insider fully verified Hilbrant’s income claims from TikTok and Cameo. We also verified a spreadsheet that shows his brand deals and personalized videos by sampling documentation for some of these services.
I first started this character for fun in March of last year. I was posting two videos a week, but it wasn’t on my radar as a way to make money until May, when The Black Tux offered me my first brand deal.
I turned to ChatGPT to ask how much I could charge based on my social platform, shared that number with The Black Tux, and they agreed. Once companies saw that I had done one brand deal, others reached out.
I started posting more often, and people started asking me if I was on Cameo. I wasn’t at the time, but I told people they could Venmo me what they thought was a fair price for a personalized video. People offered between $200 and $400, which made me realize “Wow, there’s a market for this.” Soon after, Cameo reached out. I have now done nearly 1200 personalized videos and Cameos in the past year.
I’ve made over a $1 million in revenue in the last year, with the amount I make growing almost every month. Every time a new opportunity happens, I’m still dumbfounded. My email inbox went from maybe 1 email a day to 20 every day.
Diversified Revenue Streams
I’ve since done other brand deals with B2B software companies and extensive work with fintech Ramp. Their marketing team had come up with a viral marketing stunt where I’d interview their “CFO,” Brian Baumgartner, Kevin from The Office.
I’ve also been working with consumer businesses like Boll and Branch and Daily Harvest. Typically, it’s been that a founder or CEO of a company has reached out, said they love my character, and that they want to do an ad with me. I can go from an intro to a post in under a week.
The best-case scenario is that I become friendly with the CEOs and founders at the brand. That’s the ultimate for me. Money is nice, but expanding your circle of peers is better.
While brand deals are my biggest source of income, in-person appearances at financial industry events are starting to rival them.
At events, I usually show a two-minute video with the filter, and then come out for a 45-minute Q&A as myself, and then mingle afterwards.
Some of the companies are in private equity, but others work with PE or are owned by PE, like insurance or investment banking. Every time I do one, there’s an NDA. They tell me that they don’t want the PE guys to know they’ve been making fun of them at the conference.
During the Q&A’s, people will ask me about private equity’s impact on the world and the character’s origin story. It turns out people want me more than PE guy, which is really flattering.
I also sell merch, and share the revenue with a company that produces it and handles shipping for me. On top of that, there’s TikTok, which pays you for high-performing videos. That makes up roughly 2% of my take-home pay.
Self-managed
I received reachouts from people who wanted to manage me and take up to 40% cut, which freaked me out. I decided to manage myself, and was like, “Thanks, I’ll just use ChatGPT as a manager.” I have since been signed by UTA, but they only get a cut of whatever they bring me. I still manage myself and my books 100%.
PE Guy is kind of my baby, and I don’t want to give up control. I don’t want someone telling me which videos to do or writing scripts for me. It’s my voice, and I don’t want it to change.
I never use AI to write scripts, but it is helpful for my administrative work. It’s a lot of busy work, like managing my outreaches and email conversations as well as my accounting.
At this point, private equity is mentioned in only 20% of my videos. He’s turning into a fake lifestyle influencer commenting on the world around him. If I work with a brand that’s not the best, I get commenters saying PE Guy would never use that product.
As I get access to more experiences, he gets to go on them too: going on a yacht, going on a private plane, or going to the US Open.
I have a similar love-hate relationship with the character as the one my followers have developed. When I finish filming five or six Cameos, I’m exhausted. I’m breathing heavier because of the way I have to hold myself to make these noises.
Sometimes a Cameo will come in, and at first, I think I can do it in five minutes, but then I decide I’ve had enough of him today. He exists in me, but his not allowed to just come out. I’ve set boundaries with him.
Early on, some people asked me whether the character would age quickly. It’s been 14 months, and it’s getting stronger. I do think about if the popularity will go away, but it’s kind of like thinking about how we’re all going to die. I’m alive right now, so why think about that?
I do understand there’s less job security. I am prepared for it to change eventually, but not go away, because now I have 333,000 Instagram followers. (Editor’s note: We spoke to Hilbrant on May 28th. Hilbrant now has 340,000 followers)
Hilbrant’s career journey
I started this character while working in fitness, but I realized at the end of last year that I no longer needed that job. I’ve been in the industry for 10 years, and at 36, it felt like time to do something different.
I knew things were changing when I started developing in-person PE Guy fans while teaching fitness classes at Barry’s Bootcamp and SoulCycle.
I started the character partly to parody how people in these jobs seemed to look down on me for my fitness career.
Sometimes people in the finance world say things to me, “Oh, that’s funny, that cute little thing that you do.” I’m not saying that people should take me seriously, but this is a business now.
PE Guy would be shocked if he found out about this revenue. (Editor’s note: At this point, Hilbrant started to speak more and more like PE Guy) His eyes would get wide, and he’d start to sweat a little. He’d say “Wait a second. Are you telling me in a year you made over $1 million? Let me talk to my team and get back to you.”
He’d then come back to me and would want to buy some of my IP or something. He’d for sure want in on it as a little side investment. If it blows up and becomes the next big thing, PE guy would profit from it.
He’d definitely love the fact that there’s no staff, because, as you know, PE loves to cut head count. He’d be like “Head count of one? Amazing.” He would also try to make an AI version of me so he could eliminate me from the equation as well.
