12 Unique Business Ideas For Students: At some point in their college career, most students will start thinking about what they’ll do after graduation. Some will plan to enter the workforce while others may be drawn to starting their own business.
12 Unique Business Ideas For Students
If you’re the latter, here are 12 unique business ideas that are perfect for people just starting out or who don’t have much capital but still want to pursue entrepreneurship on their own terms.
1) Become a Professional Promoter
If you’re an outgoing student with a passion for networking, why not become a promoter? As a promoter, you get to spend your time meeting new people and building your clientele while making an additional source of income. Don’t forget to check out our other business ideas for students if your interests lie in another area. What are you waiting for? Let’s start building!
2) Create an Online Store
There are several ways to get started selling online, but one of the easiest is to set up an e-commerce store through a site like Shopify. The web store allows you to sell directly to your customers while also handling all logistics, customer service and delivery. And with apps like Etsy and eBay, setting up shop on your phone can be done in no time.
Just make sure you have a clear idea of how much money you’ll need to invest before getting started. Then find a few products with high profit margins that will be easy for you to sell and ship quickly. Once your products are listed on Etsy or eBay, they take care of customer service questions and shipping (product fulfillment), so there’s very little extra work on your end.
3) Work on Your Writing Skills
As a business owner, you’ll need to produce a lot of written material. You’ll need to create an effective marketing plan and outline how you’re going to bring in customers. You might also want to develop training manuals for employees, write up contracts with partners, or create website content. If your writing skills aren’t where they should be.
You could wind up paying thousands of dollars—or more—to have professional copywriters do it for you. The good news is that polishing your skills doesn’t have to be expensive or time-consuming. Writing articles like these can help give your writing abilities a healthy boost while giving you valuable experience that will come in handy once your business is up and running.
4) Start a Dog Walking Business
If you have a knack for organization, a love for dogs, and you enjoy being outside, you may make a good dog walker. Dog walking is an easy business to get involved in; there are no formal education requirements and it can be done either on your own or as part of a dog walking service (thus providing some extra income).
Before starting such a business, contact local shelters about taking on additional responsibilities such as feeding or bathing. Some shelters may let you do that work in exchange for giving dogs walks on their days off. That way, if you build up a reputation among pet owners and local vets, it won’t be long before people are asking you to take care of their precious pooches!
5) Decorate Others’ Homes
If you have an eye for detail and are handy with a paintbrush, you could make extra money by offering your decorating services to local businesses. If you’re already employed in a business that allows you to travel, why not get paid to do it? Find out if they’ll foot part of your bill if you go on a trip. Consider taking up temporary residence in a city or town and lending your hand to locals.
That need their home or office painted while working remotely for them. You might be surprised at how many homeowners are open to hiring contractors when they realize it’s cheaper than making an expensive renovation themselves! After all, there’s little worse than moving into a new place and getting stuck with ugly wallpaper, carpeting or furniture.
6) Offer Tutoring Services
If you’re in school, tutoring is a great way to make some extra cash. More and more parents are turning to online tutoring because they’re simply too busy or don’t want to leave their children alone. Tutoring is an ideal side business because you can set your own hours and it’s not a huge time commitment, meaning you can earn money while doing something you enjoy.
Most online tutors make between $15-$30 per hour depending on how often they work. If that sounds appealing, try registering with websites like Wyzant or Chegg Tutors where you’ll be matched with students looking for help.
7) Virtual Assistant Services
Some students know they want to set up a business once they graduate, but are wary of losing income while they prepare. If you’re one of those students, it may be a good idea to look into starting a virtual assistant business on your own—even if you don’t have experience working as an assistant in real life.
The work won’t make you rich (virtual assistants typically earn between $15-$25/hour) but it does offer several unique benefits that other side-hustles lack: You can do it from anywhere, at any time of day (it doesn’t matter what time zone), and can grow your side hustle with only limited monetary investment.
There are also some potential downsides to consider before diving in, though: It will likely take months before you start earning substantial money and because there’s less competition than traditional services businesses like salons or restaurants, it could take longer for you to find clients.
Regardless of whether or not you decide to pursue becoming a virtual assistant, here are some great resources that can help get you started! 1.The Virtual Assistant Life 2.Virtual Assistant Handbook 3.How To Be A Virtual Assistant 4.The Ultimate Guide To Becoming A Virtual Assistant 5..What is A Virtual Assistant?
8) Create a YouTube Channel
The combination of low barriers to entry and high returns on investment makes YouTube an appealing platform for entrepreneurial hopefuls. However, before you dive in, make sure your idea is practical, reasonably profitable and legal. With these criteria in mind, creating a YouTube channel that generates significant income involves: 1) A clear understanding of who your target audience is 2) A viable concept 3) Video production 4) Monetization 5) Promotion 6) Consistent production.
If you can handle all of these tasks (which will take time), you may be able to create a popular YouTube channel that generates real money. The difficulty level? Moderate to difficult depending on how much time and effort you’re willing to put into it.
9) Become a freelancer.
Being self-employed can be an appealing option for many people—especially students. Even though you won’t get any company benefits, there are some key reasons why freelancing is a good business idea for students: -It can provide supplementary income; -You can do it anywhere; and -It may even help your resume stand out. If you’re interested in becoming a freelancer, here are 12 ways to make it happen.
1. Start small with a side hustle: The best way to go from having no freelance experience to building up steady work is by starting small with a side hustle. While other types of businesses might require capital investments or major risks, you can start on virtually nothing by offering services like graphic design or social media management as needed. 2.
10) Monetize content or a personal brand
There are plenty of ways to make money without having to actually sell a product, or even provide a service. If you have an awesome following on your social media accounts, there are tons of companies that will pay you to promote their products.
You can also monetize other people’s platforms by becoming an affiliate for their products and promoting them using ads and sponsored posts. Finally, you can promote your own content via brands who’ll pay you per click or lead generated on whatever content channel they send traffic to (for example, a brand might send traffic to your website with an offer of $2 per email address). If enough people click through and sign up for something with that brand, you’ll get paid!
11) Create Experiences
Building your own business isn’t just about making money. It’s also about living life on your terms and creating an experience for yourself that you can be proud of. If you want to live a meaningful life—and who doesn’t?
You need to create something, whether it’s a product or service, that helps other people enjoy their lives more. In short, if you want to create experiences for others and make a little money doing it, get out there and build something awesome!
12) Run a Summer Camp Program
College kids are probably already chomping at the bit to get out of campus and experience summer freedom. Offer them a unique opportunity, one they won’t be able to turn down: They can run their own business while on break.
On your end, you’ll benefit from being able to recruit ideal employees (unlike students who will be headed back to school when fall comes around). And who knows, maybe your business idea could even launch as a successful venture for you or your student workers once it’s time for them head back to school.
Also Read: Unique Business Ideas For Students
Conclusion
These unique business ideas for students have been arranged in order of difficulty level. Just keep in mind that whichever one you choose, if it’s your first venture into entrepreneurship, make sure you do your research and really weigh out your options.
And maybe most importantly: don’t be afraid to fail! If you set yourself up for success with a solid plan and follow through on it, there’s a good chance of succeeding along with all these other entrepreneurs who started businesses straight out of college. Good luck!
