From a marketing perspective, a website is valuable only if LOTS of people know about it and use it REGULARLY. The really difficult part of launching a project like Cragislist is getting people to use it.

If you ask people, where do you go online to buy or sell stuff, the first thing that comes to mind is EBAY, AMAZON, CRAIGSLIST, and yourwebsite. In order for your website to receive the kind of publicity and fame and recognition so that it's where people turn to, it has to be REALLY GOOD, REALLY SECURE, and POPULAR. (Popular means lots of people are using it already.)

There have been many other similar projects such as Backpage.com and several others which failed, because they were unable to attract enough users. or they were unable to monitor what was being posted, so people started selling drugs and all sorts of things, so this project you are trying to start is a really big project.

I don't want to discourage you, but from a motivational/behavioral perspective, if you want to be able to keep your momentum in this project or any project, you have to be able to make small successes, or otherwise you're going to get discouraged and quit. You either have to break up this project into a million small projects each of which has a clearly defined beginning and end, and you can tell if you succeeded or not. OR you have to pick a project that can be achieved in a lot less time, because we tend to give up. You might not give up right away, but maybe 10 years from now? Before we start something, we have to assess how much time and money it's going to require. If you have no clue about how much investment this will require, you may start with great excitement and then abandon the project less than half way through, because as you start working on it, you realize how difficult it is.

See Also: other Craigslist-like sites