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Boso, an Ebay-esque marketplace just for students, is getting some attention thanks to some savvy marketing and, now, a wedge of investor funding.

Boso (Buy Or Sell Online) is the creation of two Oxford graduates. It recently featured on Channel 4’s Tricky Business show and as a result Blogger founder Evan Williams now sits on its advisory board.

Boso have run some pertinent, low budget marketing campaigns using Facebook flyers and have quickly built the foundations of a trading community. Their approach is examined over at Trendcatching.

The key difference between Boso and Ebay is that sellers simply market their wares at a set price and transactions take place when the first buyer accepts. And of course it works well for students because often they can collect from fellow students in person.

There have been several specialist student sites of this nature come and go in recent years, all of them failing to attract an audience. When you’ve got a meat-and-two-veg business idea and not much budget to market it you have to be pretty creative and insightful to pull in punters.

Which is why Boso is interesting. It looks like they have passed the threshold of buyers and sellers needed in order to show activity and encourage newcomers to get involved. Which means they must be pretty good at selling their service to an often sceptical UK student audience. 

A nice wad of notes from investors YCombinator should help keep up the all-important momentum.

Good luck to them.