If you are only after millions and not billions, there is generally always business room for a #2, 3, 4, etc. Different UI and customer acquisition processes will naturally create different niches. Even if these niches are way smaller than the biggest group, they could still make very lucrative businesses if operated intelligently.
In classifieds in particular, there is often incentive to list the item multiple places if you want to move it quickly. Spillover from the largest sites alone could create a nice business.
These are college classifieds. Most of their target market visits their main competitor every day. The number two or three general classifieds site could maybe make a dollar or two, but when you're that marginalized in a niche market, the chances of success are pretty slim.
I'm sure the people behind this site have other ideas, and the opportunity cost of continuing to pursue this one probably isn't worth it. Best of luck to them.
Well if they can get 100,000 live listings and they can get average views up to about 1 a day per listing (seems doable at their rate with organic traffic and such) and get $10CPM off of Adsense or whatever (~ what I get across my ad-based sites), then they're talking $1000/day or $365K a year. If it costs essentially $0 to operate and it is one or two people, that is a decent salary (especially for one). Additionally, if it costs hardly anything to maintain (including their time), they can run this thing for cash and work on other things at the same time.
Also most of their target market may visit FB every day, but not all. And some will just search the Internet for listings. Some of course go to craigslist and other sites. And plenty of non-college people could see the listings too through Internet searches and contact the college kids. There are lots of opportunities here.
I guess what I'm saying is if they want to give up and give me their site, I'm sure I can make some money off it given their decent start without trying to hard (read using much of my time) :)
Thanks for the shout out and ideas..I would put the emphasis on two things:
1 - with free listings (both on the FB marketplace and on other classified sites) there is no limit to where a student would post to get exposure
2- there is plenty of distribution/technology opportunities outside of Facebook. Granted facebook is a huge platform that is impossible to compete with - we know that. But people use other sites and always will, and there is always room for innovation. For example, Facebook doesn't have a global marketplace search.
