New idea. Think of it as a profit sharing plan

Ok, so I was just thinking about how craigslist used to be and how easy it used to be to make money there. So I had a thought. What if we got together 100 black hatters, and each pitched in $100 (total = $10,000). We could let the most trusted of the 100 be the account manager, and all sign some sort of contract. Then we built a classified site to compete with them better than any other. We already have people here that can build the site, we have virtually everything we need so it would be minimum cost to build it, then we could put the rest into advertising. (tv ads would be best ) Now ofcourse I understand that people feel safe with the flagging system and all, so everything could be pretty much the same except we would just take out small things like phone verification and ghosting. So ads can still be flagged, but just reposted without issues. We could start the same way that cl did (everything free) then later we could charge where cl charges (just a little cheaper like $20 instead of $25) We have enough black hatters that would love to make money with the site so much that they would probably get to work quick getting the word out (like by emailing posters on cl). Then we would all be able to start making the old pre 2008 cl money. Then once we were able to start charging in the job categories. Imagine 100 ads per day times $20 = $2000 a day (or $20 each extra income). This may be a wild idea, but hell Im known for wild ideas lol. Plus, I haven't had an idea yet that didnt work out

Let me know your opinions on this

So you're suggesting, start a website, and build it up, so you can spam it?

That's sort of like saying.. Myspace is dead.. so lets start a new one, build it up for years, and then spam it...

You do realize, that you can actually make more money, by not spamming the site right? if it ever was to get a certain amount of traffic

100 different egos and conflicting ideas sounds like a major speedbump on the road to success.

khayos said:

100 different egos and conflicting ideas sounds like a major speedbump on the road to success.

Click to expand...

I agree very much, but if we start out with the ground rules, then there is really nothing to disagree on, then after that, for anything that comes up we could do something like majority vote. Just an idea though

Yeah, basically what you're suggesting is to create a website with purposely poor content. It would be nothing but spam. The reason that craigslist was so profitable is because chances are if someone did see spam it was OUR spam, and the reason CL tries to cut down on spam is because they know people won't use the site if it's covered with spammers' ads.

I like this thinking though. This is the kind of thinking that leads to great ideas; and it is, I'll admit, an innovative idea. I'd say if anything just try to build a website to rival CL but with a monetization method. Maybe force users to complete a CPA offer to post an ad? Think about how many ads are on Craigslist right now. Divide that by 100 (we're going to assume a 2% conversion ratio and that we have 50% of the number of users as CL) and then let's say we're only using basic email submits that pay $1 per conversion. Now, remember that we have 100 members in this organization, so we make $0.01/ad each. CL easily gets 100,000 ads per day, so each member involved in the startup is looking at $10/day, give or take. Now let's say we incorporate an SMS service that texts the user every time someone replies to your ad (with a CPM ad from us concatenated of course), and every other ad gets at least 1 response. A good CPM rate for SMS (from what I've heard) is $4, so with our current figures (1000 ads per day) that means an additional $2 per day (or $0.02/member). Let's NOW say that every 10 times a user views a posting, we throw a CPM banner on the side. If we equivocate the ads traffic to say, 10 views a day, and if we target it right and we're lucky we can claim a $2 CPM rate, so this means we're getting 10,000 views per day or another $0.02 per member. This is a total of $10.04/day for each contributor.

The problem here is that no one is going to get rich quick. We'd need to set it up so that there's a specified return rate depending on how much a user contributes to startup costs (which, by the way, I'd estimate at closer to $50,000). Set up no more than 20 investment slots, which means earnings increase 5x at least, and say that the top echelon (5 members, for example) split 50% of the earnings amidst themselves (meaning they'd each make 10% $104/daily), 40% among the middle echelon (5 more members, so each gets 8% or $83+/day), and the other 10% among the bottom echelon (10 members, 1% each or $10+/day).

There are other monetization methods I can think of, of course, like premium posts ($5 for a 1 week spot, let's say there's 3 spots in each of 36 sub-categories or 108 spots so $540 a week / $77 a day, which means another $7.70/day for a top-tier member).

This might actually work (in fact, hit me up if you'd like to talk more on it, because the more I think about it the more I like it). The whole point, though, is that we have to make it convenient for users, which is why CL is so popular. Also, they have a staff of like 8 people, so they don't have to split the profit that much. One must consider all these things when starting a site designed for a large number of users on a national level.

openaidbh said:

There are other monetization methods I can think of, of course, like premium posts ($5 for a 1 week spot, let's say there's 3 spots in each of 36 sub-categories or 108 spots so $540 a week / $77 a day, which means another $7.70/day for a top-tier member).

This might actually work (in fact, hit me up if you'd like to talk more on it, because the more I think about it the more I like it). The whole point, though, is that we have to make it convenient for users, which is why CL is so popular. Also, they have a staff of like 8 people, so they don't have to split the profit that much. One must consider all these things when starting a site designed for a large number of users on a national level.

Click to expand...

Actually reading through this just gave me another nice twist to it. You were right, people dont want to see all that spam. But we could make it to where ofcourse the 100 owners can post at will, make everything else as user friendly as cl, but instead of just outright ghosting spam ads, we could give them an opportunity to pay a premium so their ad will show. Anyways, I am replying to your pm in 3 - 2- 1

It would have to be a fairly high premium, to cause a serious barrier-to-entry. I'm thinking something more like this:

Every free (Bronze) user can have up to 5 ads live at any one time; however, you can increase this amount by purchasing a paid membership. At $10/month (Silver), you get 25 ads live. At $100/month (Gold), you get 50 ads live. Ads for any member last 14 days. After that, additional ad allowance can be purchased at a premium of $1/additional 3-day ad (this is only accessible with a "Gold" membership), with a cap of 5 ads live in any one city at once. This means that if someone wants to put more than 1 ad in each of 50 cities (let's say 3), they're having to pay out an additional $100 every 3 days (equivalent to $1100/mo including the membership).

Accounts WILL be PVA, and un-registered users will have 2 live ads allowed per IP. Also, these will be 3-day ads instead of the usual 14-day ads.

Now, there are some professional spammers that I'm sure would be happy to pay this for ads that link to their "ultra-high-conversion-THEWSOSAIDTHISWOULDWORK" landing pages. But it will provide a serious enough barrier-to-entry that we won't see every schmuck, schtick and Joe Schmoe buying some PVA's to throw into CLAD and spam us to bits; and if, god forbid, some rich asshole decides to pay that much to promote his god-knows-what, we'll be taking money-baths.

We could also offer, let's say, free lifetime Gold-level membership ($6000 value after just 5 years) to all initial investors. And, hey, we could even sell PVA's to our own website at $5/each

You're essentially suggesting to compete with a billion dollar company with a $10k start-up budget. Furthermore, you won't be able to finance the 'TV ads' that you mention with such a low project budget.

DarthM said:

You're essentially suggesting to compete with a billion dollar company with a $10k start-up budget. Furthermore, you won't be able to finance the 'TV ads' that you mention with such a low project budget.

Click to expand...

Agreed on the tv ad part, but competing with a billion dollar company is no hurtle what so ever, because even without the tv ads, there would be thousands (atleast hundreds) of black hatters who would advertise just for the simple fact that they would be able to promote their own ventures easier.

So you want to :

1) Create a craigslist alternative with $10k
2) Use part of that $10k for TV advertising. (lol)
3) No ghosting or phone verification, so EVERYONE can spam.
4) Then spam it yourself.

So basically, a clone of craigslist, adding nothing except, but rather taking away the security features so everyone using it gets scammed/spammed.

That's a great idea, really.

You must have some great contacts if you can get TV ads for less than $10k!

I especially love the part where you disable ghosting and phone verification, rather than just whitelist your own spamming IPs.

What's even better is that instead of just monetizing it legally, since um, it's your site, you're going to spam your site from random emails so there's lower trust and higher volume/annoyance.

I think this is the best part. Legal advertising on your own site is silly. We should all try this new strategy..

So instead of putting ads on your blog, just comment spam your blog with ads!!! omg, this is genius. Maybe I shouldn't share this!

openaidbh said:

Yeah, basically what you're suggesting is to create a website with purposely poor content. It would be nothing but spam. The reason that craigslist was so profitable is because chances are if someone did see spam it was OUR spam, and the reason CL tries to cut down on spam is because they know people won't use the site if it's covered with spammers' ads.

I like this thinking though. This is the kind of thinking that leads to great ideas; and it is, I'll admit, an innovative idea.

Click to expand...

You're joking? Have people lost their minds today. This is like saying you're going to create your own supermarket so you can rob it and make a fortune. :biggthump

openaidbh said:

Maybe force users to complete a CPA offer to post an ad? Think about how many ads are on Craigslist right now.

Click to expand...

You're joking? lol. I can't believe you can be serious. Why would anyone use a site where they have to complete annoying offers every time they want to post rather than use craigslist?

openaidbh said:

Now, remember that we have 100 members in this organization

Click to expand...

You mean 100 noobs who think $100 is a lot of money and are going to be fighting and bickering. Heck, $10k for an investment is a drop in the ocean never mind $100. Even if you had 100 people invest $10k each you still wouldn't have enough money to touch craigslist and no one has a company with 100 people in it for a reason. It doesn't work. There's not enough money in it for each person to make it worth while.

openaidbh said:

The problem here is that no one is going to get rich quick.

Click to expand...

You're right there

openaidbh said:

There are other monetization methods I can think of, of course, like premium posts ($5 for a 1 week spot, let's say there's 3 spots in each of 36 sub-categories or 108 spots so $540 a week / $77 a day, which means another $7.70/day for a top-tier member).

Premium posts, um.. Craigslist already do this.

openaidbh said:

The whole point, though, is that we have to make it convenient for users, which is why CL is so popular.

Click to expand...

Well, yes. Craigslist is already convenient for users.

What the OP is proposing you clone craigslist, take away the good bits and spam it to death and somehow beat craigslist.

Even if you cloned it exactly you still wouldn't be able to dent it. It's an old established site. You'd be as well trying to create a search engine to beat google.

2011nfl said:

Agreed on the tv ad part, but competing with a billion dollar company is no hurtle what so ever, because even without the tv ads, there would be thousands (atleast hundreds) of black hatters who would advertise just for the simple fact that they would be able to promote their own ventures easier.

Click to expand...

Your logic is just crazy. If these people were THAT good at advertising and could bring in this amount of traffic, well, gosh, maybe they wouldn't need an intermediate classified site?

What you're doing is tapping into a power source, then plugging in a factory in-between you and the power source that does NOTHING, then use what power is left.

You can just build an email list and monetize traffic directly rather than try to build some silly spam site that most people are going to ignore, and those that log on will see there's nothing but spammers and leave.

lolol. I really can't believe you guys are serious about this.

Click to expand...

I have much more cost-efficient ways of advertising than TV ads (though I'm sure we can get there). I'm thinking of Facebook banner ads, and Google AdWords mainly. Also, we need a working title for this website (ShitList came to mind, but I'm going to go with SpringList for now). Now here's the cool part: we rank our site to compete with CL, FOR THEIR OWN KEYWORDS. Someone searches for Craigslist on Google, we want to be the first Sponsored Result.


Oh by the way, that domain is on sale from GoDaddy for $9.00 and the auction ends today at like 5:00pm EST.


Anywho, we use SEO from our very own BHW Services section to blackhat this site to the top of the SERPS for all of CL's major keywords (including "craigslist" ), and use social media advertising to create brand awareness. Minimal TV ads can be utilized as well. We throw maybe $2k into site development, another $3k at social marketing, and that leaves us a whopping five thousand dollars to use on SEO/AdWords/other advertising platforms. C'mon, this is BLACKHATWORLD! We can drive traffic from YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and yes, even advertise on Craigslist itself! The evil genius of it is almost too much to bear.

openaidbh said:

I have much more cost-efficient ways of advertising than TV ads (though I'm sure we can get there). I'm thinking of Facebook banner ads, and Google AdWords mainly.

Click to expand...

$10k is what people drop to test a some facebook campaigns. You've obviously never done any paid advertising if you think $10k is anywhere near enough.

Big corps drop millions on advertising budgets. Millions. $10k if you're lucky will get you a couple hundred test posts from people trying it out, but then they'll see the site is essentially dead and go back to craigslist.

You can't just clone sites, add nothing and then expect them just to magically grow because you throw a few cents at it.

openaidbh said:

Now here's the cool part: we rank our site to compete with CL, FOR THEIR OWN KEYWORDS. Someone searches for Craigslist on Google, we want to be the first Sponsored Result.

Click to expand...

http://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=6118


Not to mention the fact that CL will cripple your $10k worth company in court.

BlueTurtle said:

lolol. I really can't believe you guys are serious about this.

Click to expand...

BlueTurtle, while you address some good points (and I agree with you on some, namely the large number of startup members and the whole spamming the hell out of your own site part), your overall negative attitude is really uncalled-for. I, personally, also think the idea of creating a site solely to spam it is entirely ridiculous; however, instead of just flaming and making myself look like a condescending douche, I've been trying to give the OP some ideas on creating a site to compete with Craigslist (WITHOUT spamming it to smithereens).

I don't mean to speak for anyone else here, and if anyone disagrees please say so, but I for one don't appreciate your tone or ridicule. Take yo hatin' ass home.

openaidbh said:

BlueTurtle, while you address some good points (and I agree with you on some, namely the large number of startup members and the whole spamming the hell out of your own site part), your overall negative attitude is really uncalled-for. I, personally, also think the idea of creating a site solely to spam it is entirely ridiculous; however, instead of just flaming and making myself look like a condescending douche, I've been trying to give the OP some ideas on creating a site to compete with Craigslist (WITHOUT spamming it to smithereens).

I don't mean to speak for anyone else here, and if anyone disagrees please say so, but I for one don't appreciate your tone or ridicule. Take yo hatin' ass home.

Click to expand...

I'm ridiculing the idea, not you.

Come on, you have to admit it's madness. I've never seen anything so ludicrous in my life in fact.

BlueTurtle said:

$10k is what people drop to test a some facebook campaigns. You've obviously never done any paid advertising if you think $10k is anywhere near enough.

Click to expand...

Well other sites don't go buying Facebook accounts, VCC's, and $100 ad coupons, do they? We can expect about 1/5 the usual cost of FB advertising. Also, if you had ever run a campaign for yourself, or at least done some research and used some basic math skills, you would know that even a poor-ass CPM rate (and yes, we're using CPM because we're building brand awareness, not driving traffic) of $0.50 means that the $20-something one spends to buy $100 in FB advertising nets 200,000 impressions. Now let's see what $500 will do (I would say imagine, but I'm going to do the math for you). An exorbitantly expensive fresh, untouched FB non-PVA will run, let's say arbirtrarily, $5. A VCC is $7. A $100 ad coupon is $8. That's a total of $21. With $500, we're getting approximately $2300 worth of advertising. That, buddy, is 4.6 million impressions. By dropping a solid G on FB, we're building almost 10 million impressions worth of brand awareness. Combine that with Sponsored Tweets, purchased ReTweets, purchased followers, purchased FB fans (all in the thousands), and our advertising budget is going a pretty long way. And when you can buy hundreds of Google +1's for a pittance, and we opt for not directly using AdWords to advertise, the big G will give us the authority we want.

BlueTurtle said:

I'm ridiculing the idea, not you.

Come on, you have to admit it's madness. I've never seen anything so ludicrous in my life in fact.

Click to expand...

The initial idea, yes, was pretty ridiculous, seeing as there is a LOT more money to be made in monetizing your own high-traffic site than by running your high-traffic site into the ground by spamming it. Your analogy of opening a convenience store just to rob it was 100% on point.

I'm now simply trying to expound on the "compete with Craigslist" idea, and now that we've established that we (or at least I) have the knowledge to profitably monetize a classified-ads site, we're working with the financial feasibility of the startup.

openaidbh said:

Also, if you had ever run a campaign for yourself, or at least done some research and used some basic math skills,

Click to expand...

Ehehehe.

openaidbh said:

I'm now simply trying to expound on the "compete with Craigslist" idea, and now that we've established that we (or at least I) have the knowledge to profitably monetize a classified-ads site, we're working with the financial feasibility of the startup.

Click to expand...

You're going to be a very very rich man then.

openaidbh said:

I'm now simply trying to expound on the "compete with Craigslist" idea, and now that we've established that we (or at least I) have the knowledge to profitably monetize a classified-ads site, we're working with the financial feasibility of the startup.

Click to expand...

Why just compete with Craigslist? Why not take on Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, etc? Not going to happen with that budget.

I would get rich faster by selling potatoes!

spasovski said:

I would get rich faster by selling potatoes!

Click to expand...

True, except there is one MAJOR issue with selling potatoes, it may be a more effective way or becoming a millionairezz, but I hate potatoes... :footinmou