Bran Flakezz — Turning Weekend Stories into a KRW 1.1 Billion Content Business

Brandon Edelman was a store employee earning $8.65 an hour at a fashion retailer. After he began working on TikTok under the name Bran Flakezz, he earned a total of $768,000, or about KRW 1,100,000,000, from content work in 2024. The figure was before taxes and management fees, but it was enough to change the trajectory of a life that had started with a store job.

Starting TikTok to find income beyond a paycheck

He did not set out to be a creator from the beginning. After working in Forever 21 and Urban Outfitters stores, he became a merchandising assistant at Anthropologie’s corporate office, earning $41,000 a year. He still had $30,000 in student loans to repay, and he wanted to help his parents, who were nearing retirement, so he looked for a way to make money beyond his paycheck.

He downloaded TikTok in January 2021. Watching videos posted by other people, he wanted to tell his own story too, so he posted two videos a day, but for the first several months there was little response. Then, starting in June, several videos began to spread, and by the end of summer his followers had grown to about 90,000.

Weekend stories become a full-time opportunity

One of his signature early formats was a video that rated stories from weekend nights out. Showing photos, he talked through where he went and what happened on Friday and Saturday nights as if chatting with a friend. He tackled relatable topics for people his age—dating, friendship, and nights out drinking—without holding back, and he hoped viewers would laugh for a moment and feel that their own stories were understood too.

He then moved into a social media role at the delivery service Gopuff, where his annual salary rose to $73,000. Making both company videos and personal-channel videos, he soon burned out and wanted to spend more time on his own content. Around that time, paid brand partnerships began coming into his personal channel.

The initial partnerships were around $2,000–3,000 each. Living on his company salary, he set aside about $10,000–15,000 earned from those partnerships. In spring 2022, while weighing a full-time move, he called his mother. She encouraged him to seize the opportunity if he was getting attention now, adding that he could return to the corporate job if needed. That spring, he left the job and focused on his channel.

In 2022, the year he went full time, his content work brought in about $120,000–130,000. Most of it came from brand partnerships, and by year-end his TikTok following reached about 400,000. In 2023, gross income before taxes and management fees rose to about $300,000.

Making Brand Partnerships Happen

He also took direct action to land partnerships. If there was a brand he wanted to work with, he emailed his rate card and portfolio, and he or his manager shared view counts and audience demographics. The aim was to let brand contacts judge whether the people watching his videos matched the product’s customers.

The Malibu Rum collaboration at the Firefly Music Festival in September 2022 illustrated that process well. Malibu contacted his manager first, and he spoke with the brand team to discuss how to present the event booth. His proposal to weave Malibu naturally into his usual day-in-the-life video was adopted. The Reel took about 30 minutes to film and about one hour to edit.

As his work grew, he also achieved a long-desired reality show appearance. He appeared on Barstool Sports’ Project Verified and placed 2nd among 10 participants. In a program he joined without properly knowing what competition awaited, he lasted to the end with his personality and wit.

The Income Structure Behind $768,000 a Year

By March 2024, his TikTok following had grown to about 616,000. In an interview with a local outlet at the time, he said videos he had posted over the recent 60 days had drawn 67,000,000 views and 6,000,000 likes. The light everyday stories he kept posting two a day had attracted a large audience, and sponsored brand posts accounted for most of his annual income.

He disclosed his 2024 income on the March 5, 2025 episode of Vivian Tu’s podcast Networth and Chill. Dividing annual gross income by 12 months produced a monthly average of $64,000, or about KRW 92,000,000. He explained that he pays 20% to management, along with taxes and costs for lawyers, accountants, and others who help the business.

In May of the same year, on Trading Secrets, he said TikTok creator payouts had recently climbed to about $5,000 per month. Brand collaborations remained the core of his income, while product sales through affiliate links were something he used only occasionally. He described his content as comedy and entertainment that people enjoy watching, and he earned money in line with that character.

Short Videos and Long Conversations That Expanded His Content

He structured even his short videos. Within the first 1 to 3 seconds, he offered a hook meant to seize attention, developed the content through three stories, and closed with a final line. He chose material from dating or friendships he had experienced, shaping the story so that others could recall their own experiences and listen to the end.

The subject matter of his content also widened to take in his own profession. In the TikTok Transparency series, he addressed influencer marketing and the world of making money through content, and with three friends he co-hosted the Between Us Girlies podcast. Viewers who had listened to stories from his weekend outings now followed the process of how he worked and the long conversations among his friends.

A Next Step: Investing in People and Local Community

In a 2025 interview, he also discussed a plan to spend $70,000 a year to hire an assistant. The idea was to hand over operation of Threads and Snapchat, which he could not manage alone, so that he could post content and increase income on other platforms as well. He had begun thinking about how to put more people and money into a business that started with making a single video.

Philadelphia has remained at the center of his work. He explained that brands approach him when they need someone to introduce Philadelphia in campaigns aimed at the northeastern United States. Because he has consistently talked about the city where his family lives and where he grew up, Philadelphia itself has generated collaboration opportunities for him.

That attention has also been put toward helping a neighborhood business. The son of two small-business owners, he featured Pure Green, a juice bar facing closure in February 2025, and donated $3,000 of his own money. The fundraiser went on to exceed the $70,000 goal needed to keep the shop open. When the owner asked how to repay him, he replied that hearing her story and knowing he had helped was enough.