Bilt Rewards Dropped a Sitcom. Like Actually.

From A-list partnerships to a literal sitcom, Bilt has been trying every content project under the sun to cement themselves as a household name. Is it working? Kinda. Today we’re going to unpack Bilt’s most recent attempt to become and stay relevant: a vertical sitcom.

Like, a lot. Like maybe too much. As a casual scroller, Bilt’s recent rise to prominence as NYC’s tech darling has felt anything but organic. One would wonder how they’ve managed to pop up in seemingly every luxury rental, partner with the most expensive creators on the internet, and infiltrate your TikTok feed with their infamous one-person podcast—starring none other than the CEO himself.

But a little Googling will lead you to an elephant in the room that Bilt’s CEO can afford to ensure you’ll never hear about: Bilt is run by the son of a very wealthy and controversial IT mogul. So yeah, Bilt will probably never have a money problem. Which unfortunately is a great excuse for a tech company to create a ton of content. But fortunately for them…

I remember coming across their paid ads on TikTok about a year ago. Podcast clips of the founder himself answering what I assumed were pre-written questions with pre-rehearsed answers. “You can literally earn points by paying rent. It’s so sick. Yeah dude. Why would you not be on Bilt Rewards man? Yeah man.”

In 2024, it felt like a morning prayer that Ankur Jain would recite to me as I began my daily 8:04am doomscroll.

By the end of last year, Bilt was partnering with every NYC creator you could think of (except me) (sad). Even Andrew Schulz. I mean, if their goal was to find the guy who loves the sound of his own voice the most, Bilt hit the jackpot with that one.

One year later, I have friends paying rent with Bilt. Something is working for them. Is it all because of the content? Maybe. Is it because of something maybe a little shadier? Probably. The fact that the WSJ is the first and only place I’m hearing about this makes me want to figure out who Bilt’s PR firm is and how much they charge. But it definitely made me curious to learn more. Off I went to the sitcom’s instagram where I watched about half the series, titled Roomies.

I’ma keep it real with you: I did not feel like sitting down to watch the entire 12-part series (at the time of writing this). But I did watch a few episodes. And if you have a fat marketing budget for 2026, so should you.

The series, titled “Roomies”, centers on Ellie, a midwest transplant in NYC. Not a bad premise, especially since I am literally a Midwest transplant in NYC. Not gonna lie, I already had this show idea once and I’m pretty sure they stole it from me (I have never shared it with anyone before)

The entirely vertical video series pokes fun at the struggle of moving to NYC in your 20s after college, and all the culture (and financial) shock that comes with it. Crazy rent prices, awkward apartment tours, woo-woo Bushwick people, barely understanding your friends’ jobs, and an Indian guy named Griffin for some reason. It touches on all the amazingly cringe parts of NYC life.

But a core theme of the series is one I find all too relatable: feeling like an outsider in NYC as a Midwesterner, especially with how we view money, wealth, and success. My favorite moment early in the series was when Ellie went to go meet some subletters in the Lower East Side, wondering to herself “Maybe they’ll be super cool Dimes’ Square people”. Instead, they were software engineers and nepo babies.

Making a lot of money, or coming from a lot of money, is super normal in NYC. And rent? Unless you fall into one of those two buckets of people, rent is something you are thinking about pretty much all the time. I’ve worked a few white collar jobs myself, but I never thought about the sheer amount of my income going towards rent until I moved to the city. Shit here is expensive AF. And it’s easy to feel alone in feeling that way sometimes. Especially when you’re the lone Midwesterner at some tech bro named Ashwin’s Williamsburg rooftop house cooling party in Williamsburg every other weekend wondering how they pay $4K/mo so casually.

This underlying anxiety serves as a throughline in the sitcom as Ellie navigates her new career, life, and budget. It also seems to be a throughline in this weird chapter of my life, and the thousands of people watching in NYC and beyond.

As a business trying to appeal to people who feel continually screwed by landlords, Bilt found a very creative way to tap into the emotional headspace of their total addressable market. The best part? They didn’t mention the product once (so far). I kept waiting for an ad. It never came. Oh, and the audience LOVES it. Like, they are eating this UP.

Bilt is setting a new standard in tech content. They’re showing what happens when you crank budget and creativity to the max, and productization to zero. In a world where seemingly everyone wants to hack growth with AI slop for as cheap as possible, Bilt is showing how you can win your people over just by entertaining them. Just make humor out of what your audience actually deals with. Develop diehard fans in the process. And acquiring thousands of diehard fans as a business owner is a no-brainer I don’t need to explain to you.

Plus, they look like they’re having so much fun with this cute little marketing project. Will they be able to keep this going over the long term? Who knows. Where is all this money coming from? Beats me. Is Ankur Jain going to jail tomorrow? I wouldn’t be surprised. But such is the nature of the attention arms race of 2025—doubling down on risk when common sense says otherwise.

Bilt wants diehard fans, and Bilt seems to be willing to die on this content hill. That is some shit I can respect. Plus, I laughed more than a few times watching the thing. 

As I always say: diehard fans are built on hills you’re willing to die on.

Binge.