Okay, so I’m asking this partly because I’m genuinely curious, and partly because I’m considering whether this is even worth my time.
I’ve started getting requests from a few US brands who want to run campaigns with Russian influencers, and from Russian agencies who want to work with US clients. The idea is: I sit in the middle, coordinate, take a fee. Easy money, right?
Except… it’s not that simple. I’ve done three of these in the past few months, and here’s what I’m noticing:
First one: Took 8 weeks from initial conversation to campaign launch. I was on calls, coordinating timezones, translating briefs, handling payment logistics. The fee I took? Honest to God, it barely covered the hours I spent.
Second one: Smoother. I knew what I was doing. But then the campaign underperformed (not my fault, but still), and suddenly the US brand was questioning the whole thing.
Third one: This is the one that made me think. Better margins, better results, but I also realized I was basically managing two relationships and their campaign instead of just “brokering” it.
So here’s my real question: Is there actually a sustainable business in being the bridge, or am I just adding unnecessary layers? And if there is sustainable revenue, what actually needs to happen for it to scale?
I know some of you must have thought about this. Either you’re doing it successfully, or you’ve decided it’s not worth it. What’s your honest take?
Okay, real talk: Yes, there’s revenue here, but it’s only sustainable if you stop thinking of it as “brokering” and start thinking of it as “managing.”
Here’s the difference: A broker is just the middleman who takes a cut. That’s thin margins, high dependency on deal volume, and zero moat (your partners could cut you out anytime). A manager—someone who actually owns the relationship, handles workflows, manages quality—that’s a real business.
So the question isn’t “Should I broker campaigns?” It’s “Should I build a campaign management service that serves both US and Russian markets?” If you frame it that way, the revenue scales because you’re controlling the asset (the relationship AND the expertise, not just the introduction).
I generate maybe 15-20% of my revenue just as a manager/coordinator for other agencies’ campaigns. But that’s because I invested in operational systems, communication templates, and escalation processes. It’s not passive income, but it’s repeatable.
Don’t think of it as a side hustle. Think of it as a separate service line.
One more thing—the margin problem you mentioned? That gets better if you can standardize your process and batch campaigns. Like, if you’re handling 5 campaigns a month instead of 1, your per-campaign administrative overhead drops by 70%. Batch matters.
From a business model perspective, here’s the core issue: You’re currently capturing value as a transactional middleman (low recurring revenue, high support burden) instead of as an operational partner (higher repeatable revenue).
To make this sustainable at scale, you need to ask: Can I own the relationship with at least one side of the marketplace (either all the US brands OR all the Russian agencies) and use that to drive efficiency and volume?
Example: If you own the relationship with 10 Russian agencies and they send you campaign requests, your unit economics flip. You’re not spending 8 weeks on discovery anymore—you know your partners, you have templates, you can move fast.
But this requires investment upfront: systems, documentation, maybe even a marketing plan to build that cohort of reliable partners. Once you have it, though? That’s repeatable revenue.
Let me hit this with numbers. If you’re taking a 20% fee on a average $50K campaign, that’s $10K gross revenue per campaign. If that takes 80 billable hours, you’re at $125/hour. That’s not bad, but it’s also not “passive income.”
Now, if you can run 4 campaigns in parallel (which you can’t in week 1, but you could in month 6), your time per campaign drops to maybe 20 hours. That’s $500/hour. Suddenly it scales.
The question is whether you can build systems that let you handle 4 in parallel without burning out. I’d bet yes, but it requires documentation, templates, and maybe even delegation to a junior coordinator.