Business Ideas for College Students [Best Businesses]

When you’re a student in college, money is often the most crucial thing to consider. This necessity can trigger the urge to get a job. In today’s world, however, a student has far more options than doing a regular job. If you have a strong entrepreneurial spirit, a small business is a perfect way to supplement your savings while in college.

In this article, we'll share some exciting startup ideas for college students. The major factors here are to figure out your finances, move quickly and incorporate the most suitable idea as early as possible.

1. Build Websites

Website design and development are critical skills that can be consistently monetised in the technology era. Every business nowadays is reliant on the internet. Your job is to search for entrepreneurs who don’t know how to launch their own website and help them out.

Also Read: How to create website for small business?

2. Organise and Promote Events

Event planning and promotion are both interactive and revenue-generating activities. Ask around your college campus, search the internet, and try to take advantage of event opportunities. As you gain experience, you can develop a CV; this will help you get more opportunities with greater ease.

Also Read: How to start event planning services?

3. Do Affiliate Marketing

One of the most viable business options for students is affiliate marketing. Create a unique website, start delivering useful content based on targeted keywords, and then place affiliate links across it. Drive traffic to your website, optimise it on a regular basis, and earn profit quickly and easily.

Also Read: How affiliate marketing is beneficial for any business?

4. Start Freelance Writing

Writing has always been a valued ability, and it will continue to be so in the future. If you're good at a specific language, you can start searching for writing jobs on freelancing sites like Upwork and Freelancer. Vacancies are also posted on a range of work boards, forums, and social media sites.

Also Read: How to become a freelance writer?

5. Publish an E-book

It is not challenging to write an e-book as a student. Writing an e-book is relatively easy in comparison to a physical book. After you’ve finished writing it, you'll need to promote it effectively. An e-book will eventually earn a lot of money if it has relevant and useful information.

6. Launch an E-Course

Are you exceptionally skilled or gifted in a particular field or class? You can launch your branded e-course if you can provide value addition to other students. Make sure you look up popular models and adapt their best features. In India, e-learning is extremely popular, and the trend is spreading across the country rapidly.

7. Develop a Blog

It is quite easy to start and run a blog in a particular field or topic. You can delve deeper into a specific subject on your blog and provide interesting content to your readers. You need to deliver consistent value and gain your readers’ attention and trust, and then you can monetise it to earn money.

Also Read: How to start blogging?

8. Launch Notes Digitisation Service

If you can type quickly, you can provide a notes digitisation service for other students, professors, or college staff. This service can be paid per word for the entry of handwritten notes into Word documents, Excel sheets, or PowerPoint presentations.

This could be an excellent service if you enjoy personal interactions and don’t want to manage your business in online mode entirely. There will be some in-person contact when you need to pick up the notes, and you may enjoy this.

9. Offer Language Transcription Service

If you’re in a foreign college or a university in a country where people speak different languages, you can begin a transcription service. You can create an online work portal where people or businesses can upload documents in one language. You can work with it and transcribe it as per specifications. When somebody uploads a document to your website, they need to pay a fee through your portal. This idea can be developed into a larger company if you hire others to expand your services.

10. Start Essay Writing Service

You may use this talent to make a lot of money if you are a good writer in class. You can write personalised essays on a wide range of topics according to your core competencies, knowledge areas, and interests. This venture will generate a stable monthly income for a student.

11. Provide Service as a Personal Trainer

Only sports or fitness enthusiasts can do this job. Begin by teaching children if you are a fan or a player of any particular sport. Turn your passion for health and fitness into a business and stay active at the same time. As a personal trainer, you can develop a personal brand.

Also Read: How to become a fitness trainer?

12. Start Video Blogging

Video blogging is becoming increasingly popular. As videos are trending nowadays, the chances of going viral are nearly unlimited. If you have people’s attention, they'll start following you and share your content with others. You can get thousands of subscribers in a matter of months. This can be easily achieved if you produce high-quality content.

13. On-Campus Delivery Service

Many services have been developed to deliver goods, packages, and food in cities; however, very few services deliver goods within and across college campuses. A teacher can require a suit from the dry cleaner to reach the lecture hall. Or, a group of students may require food to be delivered from the cafeteria to their dorms. If they can save time, they will have more time to learn.

A delivery service is thus another low-cost business concept for college students to try. You'd only need a bike, a sturdy bag to transport the items, and possibly a GPS if the campus is large. If you want to take this business concept beyond your own college, it would be easy to extend it to other institutes.

Also Read: How to start delivery business?

14. Textbook Exchange Service

The exchange service is a conventional concept of college, which can be hard to initiate and develop. But, if done correctly, it can benefit students significantly. This service will include developing an app or website where students from a specific school can upload used textbooks for others to purchase or rent. This idea typically fails because there aren’t enough textbooks available before the start of a term due to low stock. Thus, once the textbook-buying season starts, the business may run out of money to last until the next semester.

If you can set up a website or swap ahead of time with a large stock of textbooks, you'll have a greater chance of succeeding. Similarly, if you consult with professors and teachers to confirm that older versions of a textbook can be used, students would feel more confident in getting a used book. This would be an ideal business to run because the majority of the work would have to be done before the start of a new term and course work starts.

15. University/College Entrance Consultant

You can now help others to be admitted into the schools that you were accepted into during high school. If you applied to multiple schools and were admitted to all of them, your reputation would increase.

To implement this business concept, you can start a consulting company that helps wealthy families direct their children through the process of application and admission to their chosen school. Setting up payment schemes with a deposit for completed work and a charge for acceptance might be a smart idea. If you have email packages and a good video-calling system, you might do this online as well.

Summing it Up

Starting a business while in college will not only result in financial gain. You'll gain knowledge, experience, and expertise, too. You can develop skills in communication, persuasion, and negotiation, and you'll grow tremendously as a person. Remember, whatever business you are starting, among other things, you need a robust accounting system for smooth operations. You can use an application like OkCredit for maintaining your accounts and daily transactions.

Also Read:

1) What are The Best Tech Business Ideas to Start?
2) What Are Some Good Small Business Ideas in a Residential Area?
3) Why Do Most Small Businesses Stay Small?
4) How to Get the Attention of Small Business Owners?
5) OkCredit: All you need to know about OkCredit & how it works.

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FAQs

Q. What are the best sites for getting freelancing jobs?

Ans. There are several sites like upwork.com, freelancer.com, fiverr.com, guru.com, where you can get freelancing opportunities.

Q. What is the best way to earn money through blogs?

Ans. The best way to earn money through blogs is by monetising your site with the Google Ads network. This will help you earn substantial money within a short time.

Q. Do I need to get GST registration for my business?

Ans. While starting your business, you don’t have to get GST registration done. In India, GST registration is mandatory only for those businesses with annual revenue exceeding 20 lakhs.