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.
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) :)