Business Ideas For Students
It’s believed that some of the most successful innovators in the world start in college. Look at Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Larry Page, and Sergey Brin. Whether you’re running low on cash, or you need money to pay tuition, you could earn an income and start building a business empire at the same time. Whether it’s running errands for others or tutoring, here’s a list of a few businesses that are ideally suited to people in college:
1. Used Learning Material
Before Mark Cuban became a billionaire, he was a door-to-door salesman. Cuban wasn’t selling vacuum cleaners or subscriptions to Reader’s Digest, he was selling one-year-old calendars. Seems odd that people would pay money for a product that was literally outdated, right? But they did, and Cuban cut his teeth selling, selling, selling. You can follow Cuban’s example, except you don’t have to sell calendars.
You could buy second-hand textbooks from students when they're finished with them. You can then resell these books at the start of the new term. It’s advised to build some rapport with your lecturers and tutors to regularly assess whether they will be using the same books in the following learning cycle. If so, you’ll know which books are worth it to buy and sell again.
2. Go-To Person For Errands
You can earn some income while studying by running a ‘You want it, I'll get it’ delivery service. This can be done on evenings and weekends, where you could deliver fast-food and beer combos, while early mornings could be coffee deliveries on demand.
3. The Person With All The Notes And Insights
One of the key challenges for students is getting their hands on all the learning material they missed while skipping a class or two – for whatever reason. Sure, with e-learning taking off in most institutions, learning materials can be found on student portals. But, what if you offered a more unique take on the learning material. You could create your own notes, sheets, fact guides, and downloadable templates that other students can work from. If they need to study for something, you can make flashcards or a learning website for them to use.
You could charge a fee for taking notes and designing it into easily digestible notes for lecturers too. Why not talk to a few educators on your campus and see if you can work together on the learning material side. You could work a deal where you design and layout the notes the teachers use for a small monthly or semester fee.
4. The Cleaner And Fixer
Chances are there are a few homes in your area that you could offer cleaning and fixing services to. You can even offer these same services to your dorm mates if you live on campus or in a student housing complex. The start-up costs will be low and all you need to know is how to use simple tools.
In the early stages of launching your cleaning and fixing business, you can keep costs low by only charging for labour and asking the customer to buy cleaning materials. When it comes to cleaning equipment of tools for any handy work that needs to be done, you can hire the items you need on a day-to-day basis.
5. Relocation Assistant
Whether students are moving back for the semester break or moving home for Christmas, relocation, moving, and packing/sorting businesses can make an incredible income helping students. According to Entrepreneur, a mover can make almost USD 200 for a single move.
Two American students, Stephen Vlahos and Cameron Doody noticed this need and created Bellhops, a student moving service, which has spread across the USA. The pair say the money they made from moving things in their early days was much more than could have earned working in a pizza shop or as a sales assistant in retail. Naturally, you might need a hand with moving so you can rope in a few friends to help for larger projects and they can earn a small income too.
6. On-Site Specialist Tutor
If you’re doing well in your course, and you are known to excel at assignments and projects, you can become a tutor to students that can use your help. Of course, you’ll charge them for your services. Creating course notes, or study guides for your own students can even help you generate further income through paid-for revenue streams. This will also help you as you need to really know your class.
Face-to-face tutors can charge a premium for their services, but if you’re dealing with the college student market it’s advised to look at a more mass-market approach. Rent out one of the campus halls, or host tutor hours at a local coffee shop, the choice is yours as long as you charge a fee to attend because you need to make money for it to be a business.
