Business Ideas For CS Students: You may have found out in high school that you enjoy math, science, and computers, or you’ve had successful internships with technology companies, but have you ever thought about starting your own business? Do you have an idea of how to do it, but don’t know how to get started?
Business Ideas For CS Students
This article is here to help you with everything from brainstorming your next big business idea to testing and iterating on it to finally launching your product or service. No matter what stage of the process you are in, there are ways to move forward with your idea!
Consulting
If you have some coding experience, it’s relatively easy to start a consulting business. If you’re at all technical and like working with people, it’s worth considering. It really does just take an hourly rate multiplied by your hours worked per week to figure out.
How much you can make per month. If you want to go more in-depth with building your business, we recommend checking out Ramit Sethi’s Consulting 101 course .
Investment
Many successful businesses start off as an investment or passion project, which is a great way to make money without risking it. For example, you can use your coding skills to start an app business on a shoestring budget and slowly grow it over time.
It might take longer than a few weeks to get big, but slow growth allows you to experiment with your business idea in different marketplaces until you find one that really suits your style. If you’re looking to be entrepreneurial but don’t want to put down lots of capital or launch right away, consider launching an online course on sites like Udemy or Pluralsight.
Startup – Software Development
Is software development your ideal business? Many developers like to set up their own companies, either through full-fledged startups or as freelance gigs. Software development is a great business to start in college because it takes relatively little capital to get started.
You can also freelance using services like oDesk and Elance (although you’ll have fewer opportunities). Before jumping into anything, you should be sure that your passion for programming translates into a viable business idea—but if you’re already thinking about becoming an entrepreneur, developing apps and websites might be your calling.
Startup – Database Development
Startups – Database Development often becomes a hot business idea. Every year, it continues to remain one of those top startup businesses. Whether you are an experienced developer or someone who wants to start from scratch, there is no need to get overwhelmed by all of the startup details before you begin.
Start simple and take things step-by-step by selecting a business idea that works well with your background and skillset. In addition, no business idea is complete without taking into account your available resources including financial, time and social capital as each can play an important role in any businesses success.
Startup – Front-end Web Development
If you want to be a software engineer, you’ll find it easier to work on web-based projects. If there are not many jobs around where you live, why not do it yourself? You can offer your services online and get clients from all over. A front-end web developer is a more technical type of web developer that knows how to manipulate HTML, CSS and JavaScript code in order to produce graphics and interactive elements within websites.
Front-end web development is also known as user interface (UI) or experience (UX) design as well as user interface design (UED). A client might hire you to help build their app’s front end or they might hire you directly if they just need some tweaks made at a later date.
Selling Products on Amazon
By selling products on Amazon, you have access to a huge community of potential customers. The downside is that it’s not easy to get ranked highly on search results—there’s more competition than eBay. However, if you’re able to rank higher than your competitors (i.e., if you have something better)
It could be an excellent source of passive income. There are even features available like Amazon Vine, which allows certain sellers to get their products reviewed by a small selection of their fellow sellers and editors—an excellent way to make sure your product stays competitive!
Selling Digital Products (e.g. courses, software, online books)
To sell digital products, create a website to host them. When someone purchases your product, use Stripe or PayPal to collect payment. Once you have a few customers and some positive reviews, you can use your website as an online storefront for selling physical products too. You can even set up an online store through platforms like Shopify or BigCommerce if you don’t want to develop your own site.
Selling digital products doesn’t take much time after launch either—once it’s built, it’s a machine that runs on its own.. Building digital products is quick and simple way to start a business because there are less barriers than other businesses . A successful course can easily bring in $50k+/year—more if you build several of them.
Software as a Service business (SaaS)
SaaS companies handle most of their operations online. This allows them to have minimal overhead costs, so they can afford to offer lower prices than non-software companies. Many SaaS services are subscriptions or pay-per-use models, so a company only needs to acquire a customer once to start making money off of them.
The SaaS business model requires less capital than physical goods or even traditional software companies, and is thus popular among startups that don’t want to (or can’t) shell out tens of thousands of dollars on licensing fees and software development kits in order to get started.
Specialised Skill Training
(e.g. teaching Java/Python to others, tutor in programming languages/programming concepts/algorithms, etc.)
Developing a skill and teaching it to others is a great way to make some extra money. The typical way to do so is through specialized skill training, which can be done on your own as well as with another person/people (which can be fun). Just remember that you need something solid if you want to charge others!
Make sure that you have a strong grasp of whatever it is that you’re going to teach, or else no one will be interested in hiring you. If there’s interest in your skillset, consider setting up an online course using sites like Udemy or Teachable. You’ll have plenty of time during your work hours, so why not try making some money while still at work?
Java
Millions of people use Java every day without even knowing it. The Java Virtual Machine (JVM) is what makes it possible to run programs written in other languages on a computer that runs on Java. This idea has been extremely successful and gives users access to so many more products than they would otherwise have.
Even if you aren’t a huge fan of Java, you can still apply its ideas to your own business. It’s incredibly easy to put together an application that can run on multiple platforms with very little coding—what you do need is a solid understanding of what JVM offers. If you like business innovation, download your free trial version now!
Python
According to Stack Overflow’s 2016 developer survey, Python is one of the most popular languages used today. It’s a good choice for entrepreneurs because it is generally easier to learn than other programming languages, making it more approachable and user-friendly. Many entrepreneurs find that learning python helps them build out their ideas more quickly in order to get a prototype up and running.
Google Algorithms
Google has become a household name and most people understand how it works on a basic level, but have you ever considered turning Google into your personal assistant? It is possible to write applications that take advantage of both Google’s search capabilities and its payment system.
If you are an engineering student with experience in Java or Python, there’s no reason why you can’t set up an application that answers any questions that users ask about your product or service. You might not know how to get started, but if Google provides all of their information, then building such an application should be easy. People might be using your application without even knowing it!
Programming Concepts
What can a computer do that makes it more useful than any other tool you’ve ever used? (If nothing, don’t bother.) Most people would say math—it can crunch numbers quickly. But there are plenty of spreadsheets and calculators that could have done that job, too.
The reason computers are really useful is because they can make their own decisions about what to do with math problems. They don’t need to be told step-by-step what to do (if X=2, then multiply it by 3…). The concept of variables lets a computer make all kinds of decisions on its own; which steps to take, in what order, and how fast each step should be performed.
Also Read: Earn Money From YouTube By Teaching
Conclusion
I wanted to provide one more quick example of how writing and thinking about business, entrepreneurship, leadership and strategic planning can help you be a stronger software engineer. I’m not saying that every software engineer needs to be an entrepreneur or needs to know how to write a business plan. But I do think that having some of these skills will help you become a better technical leader.
After all, if you run into some sort of trouble, who is going to solve it? If no one else is around (or willing), who is going to solve it? That’s right—you are! So developing problem-solving skills—business skills—is important for future developers and engineers.
