craigslist
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
Some sections are still being researched1 / 4
Sections to complete：02
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Craigslist is an online classifieds platform founded in 1995 by Craig Newmark, offering local classifieds and forums for jobs, housing, for sale, services, local community, and events. Known for its deliberately simple, unpolished interface and free-community model, it charges only for select categories (such as job postings in major cities and apartment listings) while running an extremely lean operation of a few dozen employees. It remains highly active: Similarweb ranked craigslist.org #138 globally with 103.1 million visits in April 2026, and SEMrush recorded 148.33 million visits in September 2026.
02 / FAILURE REASONS
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Founded
Craig Newmark founded Craigslist in 1995 as an email list for San Francisco events; it grew into the world's dominant classifieds site.
- Still operating
Craigslist continues to operate at scale, with over 100 million monthly visits recorded by web analytics firms in 2026.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
Founded in 1995 by Craig Newmark, the classifieds site continues to operate at scale, drawing over 100 million monthly visits in 2026.
- 02
No audited loss figure was publicly disclosed.