Is 1000+ users a good measure of success? I'm honestly curious since I have little to no clue about how much traffic or how many users faucets usually have?
Kind of. If you have over 1,000 daily claimers, it means your faucet has gained some reputation and you have loyal claimers who think it's worth revisiting your faucet. However, in the end, that does not matter if you are not making more than you are giving away. If you want to give away the same amount that reputable faucets do in order to gain some claimers, you will lose money in the beginning. Ad networks will not accept new websites. As your faucet ages and your Alexa rank increases, you will gain access to better networks and better advertising rates. If you can support your faucet until you get to that stage, your chances of survival are a lot higher.
I like your way of thinking, that way I started a bitcoin faucet too! But to tell the truth it is difficult to have a profit nowdays. The price of bitcoin has increased to much and you have to calculate hosting costs and loses from ad networks that don't pay. But still it is a nice game to play with strategies that will give you profit. Practically I think that if you are persistent and have web developing knowledge, you can gain.
I agree that it is difficult to profit nowadays. Back in 2015, I had a faucet that would give away 100-400 satoshi an hour. With today's bitcoin price, I would go bankrupt extremely quickly. The faucet I run now with a friend of mine, we have 200-250 claims a day. That is 8,000 - 10,000 satoshi a day given out on our faucet. At this rate, for every 1,000 impressions, we need to earn $3-$4 in revenue in order to profit. We are not there yet though because this faucet is new and is not on any good ad networks. If you can monetize your faucet with more than just advertising, you have a significant chance of surviving in the end. Dice games, lotteries, PTC walls, stuff like that. This is where having lots of users would be an advantage because they are engaging more with your site.