Craigslist Invented Every Tech App

Why craigslist is successful. Craigslist started all the major startups we know today. Airbnb, Uber, Reddit, Tinder, etc...Craigslist had it first. For every niche of Craigslist there is now a billion dollar unicorn startup.

For founders & entrepreneurs running internet technology startups, many have seen the following image. For those who are interested in founding a startup or perhaps work in one, they should see the following image. Something interesting has happened in the last 20 years.

The internet was born in the greatness that was the 90’s, and it was the decades that followed that has allowed the internet to evolve into what we have today.

The image above is of the front page of Craigslist, with an arrow pointing to a hyperlink that some startup has come to specialize in. Initially started as basically an email newsletter, the Craigslist website went live in ‘96 and is probably the oldest webpage worth noting that is still running today. Born in an age of unbounded optimism for the internet & what it could bring, Craigslist embodied the original decentralized, democratized vision of the internet - allowing anyone, anywhere, to make a post. Free of charge.

A common question among potential startup founders, or even serial founders, is “what should we make? what will we offer the world?”

Well, if you’re looking to create a marketplace, an easy answer is to check the image above & simply pick a hyperlink to build for. Each one of those links has spawned an internet company specializing in what it was offering, many of which have gone on to become billion-dollar enterprises (AirBnb, Uber, Github, Chegg, etc).