Some small Business ideas for Students
Here are some small business ideas for students to start-up
Students have to pay for or buy a number of things ranging from text books, excursions, field trips, research projects, practical and even accommodation. With the increasing costs of fees in schools and colleges, it’s now becoming more than important for college bound students or those already in college to start a business. So students can easily get part-time jobs. But due to the bad global economy, there are now fewer jobs, stiffer competition, automation with technology, and constant changes within corporations.
However, you can still live comfortably and achieve great career accomplishments if you make the right strategic moves. Launching a business while in college will set you up for success and responsibility. There are many unique startup business ideas for students that can turn out to be profitable ventures later on. It may begin with the young and enterprising person’s passion for something. So without wasting your time, below are profitable business ideas that you can start as a student:
Start Blogging: You can create a blog on blogger.com or WordPress and start writing about topics you are passionate about. All you need to start this is your computer and internet connection. If you write well and you gain much blog traffic, you can make money from Google AdSense or other third party advertising agents.
Affiliate Marketing
What an affiliate marketer does is to help promote products and services of other companies and earn commission from sales made. You will need a good knowledge of web marketing, sales copywriting and pay per click marketing to become an affiliate marketer.
Freelance Writing: You can provide ghost writing services to people who need it and get paid for it.
Virtual Assistance Services: A lot of busy professionals would not mind getting extra help in reading their e-mails, responding to enquiries and organizing meetings and tasks for them without having to hire a secretary or personal assistant. Many people prefer to hire a virtual assistant who would work from home. You can become a virtual assistant and offer such services as long as you have a computer and an excellent internet connection.
Resume Writing Service: If you are very good with words and information presentation, you can help people write their resume in ways that would attract employers and get paid for it.
Bookkeeping Services: If you are really good with accounting, you can become a bookkeeper and offer bookkeeping services to business and individuals online.
Engage in Website Design: As a student, you can go into website designing and get paid for it. You can also buy websites that are undeveloped, develop them and then sell them for a fee.
Search Engine Optimization : Companies and business owners are always looking for ways to place their businesses at the top of search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. You can make money by helping companies improve web page ranking.
Language Translation and Transcription Services: As a student, you can offer language translation services. If you are very good in a second language, you can help people translate documents from that language to English or vice versa. There are also lots of opportunities for transcription services on the internet. Transcription entails converting recorded speech to written text.
Organizing Webinars: You can organize seminars online known as webinars and share your ideas on a certain topic that people would be interested in while you charge attendance fees.
Online Nutritionist: A lot of people are looking for ways to eat healthy so as to prevent diseases in future and a lot of people are also looking for diet plans for weight loss online. You can make money by selling weight loss meal plans or nutritional guides to people online.
Ticketing Agent: As a student, you can make money from selling air travel tickets to people who need it on the internet.
Online Tutor: If you are smart and very good academically and wouldn’t mind imparting knowledge in others, you can make money by becoming an online tutor. There are websites that offer such services and you can sign up to become one of their tutors or you can create your own website and start helping students get better at their academics.
Become a Graphic designer: If you are very good with graphics, you can make money by becoming a graphic designer. There are websites where you can offer your services and get paid for it such as Freelancer.
Property Finding Service: You can offer property finding services to fellow students searching for accommodation or even to non-students. You will need to go around and search for vacant houses and list them on your website so that people who need such accommodation can contact you. However, you will need to create awareness for your website by printing flyers and telling as many people as you can.
Establish Online Directories: You can also create online directories and charge companies for listing their businesses.
Engage in Online Surveys: There are lots of opportunities to make money from filling out online survey. Simply register on a legitimate paid survey site and get paid when you answer survey questions.
Online Reputation Management: A company’s reputation translates to sales most of the time, which is why companies pay people to manage their product and brand reputation online.
Buying and selling stuff online has become one of the big money-earners in the digital age. The challenge comes in offering something unique or which stands out from other product offerings in the marketplace.
Tutoring service: As a college student, chances are you are particularly good in one or two subjects. You’ll make a lot of money by offering to teach others who are having problems with those subjects — most especially if they are very important subjects that students must pass before promotion or graduation.
Career counseling: If you have good communication skills, you can meet the recruiters and employers in the on-campus career center to learn what they are looking for in job applicants. Then you can become a career coach and counselor simply by leaking these secrets to other students.
Sports training service: If you are a good athlete and sportsman, think about starting a personal sports training service aimed at teaching fellow students who are interested in becoming skilled sportsmen like you. You can use either an on-campus facility or a local fitness facility off campus.
Party promotion: Most college students love partying. So, you can make decent income if you know how promote parties and get the best deejays and party people to events. You can also organize shows involving celebrity singers and entertainers.
On-boarding services for international students: If your college admits students from other countries that have never lived in your country for long, you can start an on-boarding service for international students. Such students find the campus environment overwhelming, and they may have a hard time blending with the new system.
If you are compassionate, and you enjoy meeting new people, you can set up a hospitality or familiarization program for international students. You can either collaborate with the office of students’ affairs in your school or run your business independently.
Graphics arts design services: If you have a knack for creative design and you are very good at it, you can start a graphics design business. You can offer your services for both students and college professors who want to beautify their research and reports as well as their presentations.You can also make additional income by designing banners for events and occasions in your college and by designing creating greeting cards for birthdays and holidays.
Freelance writing services: If you are very good with words, then you can start a freelance writing service. This would involve handling writing assignments for clients — not fellow students, because this is unethical and against the rules in virtually all schools and colleges. You can hook up with clients over the internet by registering an account with freelance outsourcing sites.
You can start a blog for marketing your writing services and promote your business in online forums and via social media. Writing assignments that you’ll be handling for clients include articles, blog posts, ebooks, sales copies, press releases, business proposals, and so on.
Event planning: There are series of campus events from student parties to award nights and convocations. You can offer your services and help in planning such events and get paid for it. Although starting up might be challenging as you will need to be able to convince sponsors that you can handle the job perfectly. You can offer to do the first few jobs for free and start charging when you have proven yourself to be an excellent event planner.
Fitness Trainer: Our society has made keeping fit a necessity and many people are looking for ways to keep fit daily. Not many people have the time to visit a gymnasium and would gladly pay for a personal fitness instructor to come into their homes and train them instead. If you are someone who is passionate about sports, you can become a fitness trainer and earn decent income from it.
Photography and Videography: Students love to capture beautiful moments in photos and there are chances of making good money if you are a very good photographer. You can also record live campus events on video tapes and sell them for a fee.
Food Delivery: As a student, you can make money as a part-time chef or by making pre-packaged meals and selling them to fellow students.
Transportation service: If your parent has an old car that has been abandoned for a long time, you can fix it and start a micro transport service. Chances are your fellow students need transportation to and from campus. And most of the time, the transport arrangements by school authorities are not very good. So, your college colleagues would be willing to pay you to transport them. They will prefer your services to that of the college because yours will save their time and provide more comfort and flexibility.
Dance and Music Classes: If you are really good at dancing or play any musical instrument well, you can become a music or dance instructor.
Gardening: Do you love gardening, trimming lawns and beautifying homes? A lot of people wouldn’t mind paying you to help them keep their homes and gardens beautiful.
Selling E-books: As a student, there will be topics you are passionate about and you can make money by writing e-books about them and selling them on the internet. Writing books would not cost you money but a little bit of your time and energy and this can easily be done alongside studying. When writing your e-book, you must make sure you research hot keywords in that niche and use them so that people can locate your e-book easily through search engines.
Building Mobile Applications: Mobile Apps are hot right now and many businesses and individuals are hiring people to build mobile applications for them. Do you have programming skills? Then you can also make money as a student by building mobile apps and publishing them.
Cute and unique gift items presented in a website can sell like hotcakes especially during seasons like Christmas and Valentine. Reasonably priced cupcakes with creative designs can likewise capture the attention of pastry lovers or food gift buyers browsing the web.
Computer enthusiasts who use the Internet for research, emailing, and playing online games may find huge appeal in taking part in a business like testing new games and providing feedback on the games.
Another business idea for students is using a leading e-commerce site to sell goods. What young enterprising individuals need to do is simply take good photos of the products they intend to sell and post these online, along with a concise product description so that potential buyers can bid on them.
Students can also choose among the reputable affiliate marketing programs online that sell products; then they can allot time to learn details about products the affiliate companies sell, like jewelry, supplements, apparel, gadgets, home wares etc.
Most small business ideas that start out small end up churning out huge profits, and the best thing about such businesses is that youngsters can manage them from the comforts of their homes or neighborhood.
With good luck !
Ginger Fingers 