College is one of the best times to give entrepreneurship a try. College tuition and costs are going up each year. But if you want to make some extra money and avoid student debt, it’ll be hard to add a job to your class schedules.
One of the best ways to make some cash is to set up your own business. You can do it in your spare time. Plus, it won’t be as demanding as a part-time job.
But what could your startup be about? Here are 10 awesome business ideas for college students that you might want to try!
Create Jewelry
Do you love making jewelry? Why not turn that into a business?
Create your own designs and start selling them on Etsy. If there are local events near you, you can try signing up and sell some of your jewelry there, too.
You can also tap local art shops if they can sell your products.
With this business, you can be creative as much as you want with your jewelry pieces. It’s one great way to manage your stress with college.
Sell Soaps
Aside from jewelry, you can try selling soaps.
Don’t have the experience? That’s okay! There are tons of free tutorials online for making soaps.
It’s a fun business to start which you can turn into a full-time business. You don’t need a lot of capital but you’ll need to be patient as it takes time for you to establish your soap brand. Make sure to put effort into soap packaging. Eye-catching, eco-friendly, or reusable packaging can create a memorable unboxing experience, foster customer loyalty, and encourage repeat purchases. You can use paper bags, wrapping paper and a twine to enhance the perceived value of the product.
You can easily sell your soaps at your dorm, craft fairs, or online. Make sure to create a quality product, use organic ingredients, and have beautiful designs!
From unicorns to bears, you have a lot of designs to choose from when creating soaps.
Start a Blog
Starting a website is so easy nowadays that you can create your own in under an hour! You have so many choices on what kind of blog you would want to make.
You can blog about your weekend trips, review local food, or share study tips. Then, find ways to make money from your blog by either setting up ads, becoming an affiliate, selling products and so much more!
However, you’ll need to be patient if you want to make some money from your blog. You’ll have to write dozens of blog posts before you get to the point of making a decent income from your blog.
On the bright side, there’s no limit to how much money you can make from your blog. You can earn as high as $10,000 or more and as little as $1 per month.
Start a Delivery and Errand Service
This is one of the easiest ways you can make money. Deliver goods and packages around the campus and charge a small fee.
A professor might ask you to deliver his books, or some students might want some food from the cafeteria delivered to their dorm. You’ve got yourself hundreds, if not, thousands of customers within the campus.
All you need to start this business is reliable transportation and a strong bag. It can easily be expanded across your town if you want to try providing your service outside your college campus.
Set Up a Pet Sitting Business
If you love pets, you’re going to love starting a pet sitting business. All you have to do is spend time with dogs or cats.
Take care of pets around your area and make money. You can either take pets out for their daily walk or take care of pets when their owners are out on a holiday. Make sure to provide their favorite snack or special high fiber cat food.
Try Photography
Got a camera? Turn that into a business!
Start offering portrait photography services. You could also sell packages for family photos or events such as conferences or weddings.
The best part is you can do this on your weekends and make some money.
Before you start, you’ll need to plan your business and create a photography portfolio to show your clients.
Become an Event Organizer
College students love to party. So why not make a business around that?
Act as a liaison between venues and local entertainers. Start networking with your local musicians and venue owners. Promote events on-campus by putting up posters, passing out flyers, posting on social media, or creating a website.
For every successful event, you’ve got a percentage on the ticket sales!
This business is perfect for you if you love meeting new people and have great organizational skills.
Sell Shirts
Another business that you can do is to sell shirts. If you’re good at graphic design, you can create the shirt designs yourself. If not, find someone to make the designs you want.
Design is a very important aspect if you want to have a successful shirt business. After all, it’s what will make your customers want to buy.
When selling shirts, you have to ask yourself if you want to print the shirts on your own or find a company like Teespring that will take your designs and print them whenever someone orders.
Sell Your Baked Goods
Have you had people tell you how delicious your cookies are? Or how good you are at baking?
If so, maybe it’s time you start selling those goodies. You could sell your baked products to bakeshops or local stores. Consider baking for special events, too.
What makes the baking business a good profitable idea is that for every satisfied customer, you’ll get twice or thrice the number of orders. Word-of-mouth is one of your best marketing techniques when it comes to businesses related to food.
Final Thoughts
College is hard and putting up a business while you’re juggling projects and classes is even harder.
But when you push through, you’re sure to find success. Find a business that you enjoy doing. Not only will it help you financially, but it will also be a way for you to express yourself and maybe even destress from all the school work.
Who knows? Your business idea might just have the potential to go bigger.
