He just launched, and he's bringing in $1500/month (website says 151 customers now).

If he pays people to make all the calls, it should take him almost no time to run the business. And even paying the callers a reasonableish sum, he probably keeps ~1/3 of the money.

So he wrote an extremely-simple website, got it some exposure, and hired a friend to make the calls, and now he's got $500/month in recurring income that has a good chance of growing and requires little recurring work. Sure, he's not going to get rich, but that doesn't mean it's a failed venture.