Craigslist's Unusual CEO
Craigslist
Jim Buckmaster may be one of the most unusual CEOs of a major website in the world. He focuses on giving users what they want, and clearly says maximizing revenue is not a goal. How's that?
Craigslist is one of the fastest, easy to use, and valuable sites I use. Listing most items is free, and it's much less expensive for posting jobs than sites like Careerbuilder or Monster.
The Craigslist business model is to charge for jobs and apartment listings in New York at under-market prices. With their huge body of users, they have a great service. Undeniably. On the business model side, it could be argued that they are actually priced right for the volume of traffic they have. Meaning, the revenue curve is maximized by the price and amount of traffic.
However, I don't think anyone will argue that they couldn't make more money, but for this company, maximizing revenue is not a goal. In a recent business week article interviewing Jim Buckmaster his contrarian points of view could be the successful formula for making a successful website.
- Put users first.
- Generate revenues to be sustainable, but not for the sake of growth.
- Keep it simple.
- Happy being small. 24 employees.
- Be in markets incase your competitors screw up and stop serving customers so that there will be a place that meets their needs. Even if they arn't using it today, but don't try to be #1. Just be an insurance policy.
Jim Buckmaster
I think it's hard for most of the business world to understand Jim and his contrarian business sense. However, I think he may have the perfect small business.
In the world of classifieds, there is no shortage of free websites to post classified ads. The one thing they lack is users. Craigslist has them. If they charged, the users would probably leave. But since he has such a huge number of users, he can charge for a few things that businesses pay for like job postings, while keeping it free. In this sense Craigslist has a complementary service that is sponsored by businesses. It's just the ads are listings, like the rest of the content.
Comments
Craigslist needs a designer. I think the UI on the site could use a bit of an overhaul. But what they have is obviously working, so it begs the question, what is design for? Any thoughts guys?
In the interview he says that when people say Craigslist needs a designer, it's usually a designer that says it.
It's very functional. And for me, i'll take function over most designs.
I look at Craigslist, and have used it successfully. I love how simple it is to use, so I think the disign is perfect. I also look at SLOfreecycle, sort of like craigslist, but just for what you want to give away and what you want for free, but Craigslist is better. I love his buisness goals: put users first. That reminds me of Sear's old saying: "The customer is always right."
When you do what you enjoy, and put everything into it, carefully and with thought, the money will follow!
I agree for the most part justjanice. I think I've heard Oprah utter similar words about doing what you love and money. So, you're in good company.
Yes... Jim did something that even some execs at AOL and Yahoo! have a hard time processing. He followed a less is more approach to building a "community" in Craigslist without driving away folk with tons of ads, offers, and blurbs. It is the same reason that Google takes so much of the search market. Type in "yahoo.com" and tell me what Yahoo! is trying to do. They are trying to do everything. Google is trying to expand their empire, but Search is their foundation and was not sacrificed as it was with Yahoo for a quick buck. The local newspapers that inhabit the areas covered by Craigslist need to examine their marketing approach before they lose readers (just like the SF chronicle has).
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He truely is unique, and his business is ridiculously popular because of it.
Iðunn 5 years ago
I didn't know this, but it's a neat thing to find out.
I suspect if more people had this kind of vision, the economy of the entire U.S. would pick up. sometimes less is more. :)