As a college student in 2022, being academically excellent isn’t enough. You need to be smart to make a good financial stand right from your college days by adding a side hustle business during your college time.
Money is important; to purchase online courses, to buy books and pay for the tuition and the coaching, to handle other minor expenses during your college life.
Accepting money from the parents or expecting some scholarship is fine, but starting a side business along with studies can make you stand far ahead in your after-college career. Being financially strong and able to make money during college days can prove to be a game-changing skill for your corporate start after your education.
So, is making money along with studies hard?
To be true, making money is easy especially in the present digital world; but with the right strategy.
There are several business ideas for college students that you can pursue and work in your extra time, after classes and generate revenue. But, before going to the business ideas, research whether your skills have some market value!
So, here are some business ideas that will help you to be a student entrepreneur in your 20’s.
1. Blogging: Perfect for all Field of Study
College time is the best time to start a blogging business.
So, if you are good at writing or creating content, then buckle up and start blogging as your college-time business. The overall blogging business model is simple and with vast possibilities.
The general steps are:
- Choose a topic/niche
- Create a blogging website (prefer WordPress.org)
- Write and publish content
- Use simple marketing methods to promote
- Add monetization method and make money
Your blogging business costs less than a Pizza/month
Its all so easy with a blogging mentor
Laptop + Writing skills + Mentor
This is all you need to start blogging business! Purchase hosting, build website, setup page and post amazing articles, promote and earn.
Blogging is like an e-journal, and students have the freedom to choose the niche which is academically related to them. Writing blogs exercises the students on that topic, boosts creativity, sharpens their minds, improves their writing skills, and most importantly earns money as a college student.
By blogging, students can easily earn a 7 figure income with the least investment (cost about 1 pizza per month) but it requires some effort, time, consistency, and if possible a blogging mentor.
2. Freelancing: Flexible Earning Method
- Content writing
- Logo designing
- Copywriting
- Web development
- Voice over
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3. Social Media Manager
Social media marketing is also a good way to start your business during college.
To this business, you need to learn the skills to manage a social media platform, create engaging posts, connect more audiences, generate leads from these social platforms, etc.
To start, you need to decide which platform(s) you want to focus on, and then grow your skills and learn about different strategies for that platforms. Here are some of the demanding social media platforms:
- Quora
You can also manage multiple platforms.
After deciding the platforms, optimize your profile according to the desired platform and start connecting or following your target audience or followers.
Grow yourself on that platform, connect to a company or brand, and sign a bond to grow their social media handles. Share valuable content, run ads, campaigns, handle their clients’ social media accounts, and help them to generate leads and sales.
4. Start a YouTube Channel
YouTube channel is free to start and it takes less than 5 minutes to set up your YouTube channel.
However, the real challenge lies in producing video content; which involves planning, scripting, recording, editing, adding captions, giving voice over, and making it perfect to upload it on your channel.
A lot of college students are starting their YouTube channel, easily monetizing them, and earning money from AdSense or from Sponsored videos.
Videos can be on any niche, but choosing what is related to your interest and academics can help. Here are some YouTube ideas for college students:
- Topic explanation on your subject of study
- Sports blogs if you are interested in sports
- blogs, where your share your personal thoughts on topics of your interest
- Product/book/college/game review
- Funny and prank videos
You can also come live and can have Q&A sessions with your audience, share some mythological stories, make some funny videos, and can share anything that comes to mind.
The Story of Prince Kumar Rana:
I started “Concept Booster” in the 2nd year of my engineering in which I explained different concepts of engineering subjects and share them with my friends. It helped many of them to understand. In the initial days, I struggled to gain views but as the number of videos increased, views and subscribers increased.
I learned a lot about video editing, SEO, marketing, and video recording; utilizing the best of my free time during my college days. It was one of the best things that initiated during my college days. However, my frequency of video posting was less and therefore the progress took longer than expected.
Starting YouTube can take a lot of time and effort but it depends upon the type of vlogs you are making and the type of audience you are targeting.
5. Tutoring
Tutoring is also a good way to start earning in college days.
In the past, students have been teaching (still a lot of college students are tutoring offline) a bunch of school students to manage their expenses. However, with digital advancement, this tutoring business has shifted online.
To start tutoring online, choose your subject of expertise, choose the digital platform you want to teach on, create your account and start giving classes.
These are some platforms to start teaching online:
- Udemy
- Coursera
- WhiteHat Jr
- UpGrad
- Teachable
To know the feedback of your course you can ask your connections for referrals and can take some reviews from your former students too.
From tutoring, you can generate a good amount of money.
6. Virtual Assistant
If you have good management skills, then becoming a virtual assistant is a good choice to start.
As a virtual assistant, you are responsible to manage the daily schedule for your clients, attending calls, managing their social media accounts, checking for meetings, preparing and organizing reports, and planning expenses, etc.
You must be thinking that it requires some experience but it’s not the case. Experience is fine, but all you need is good management and organizing skills.
Nowadays many virtual assistants earn a lot only by doing simple things.
7: Influencer: Build Your Audience
To become an influencer you need some hard work. It is a hot marketing technique.
Influencers are the people with potential in them that impress their audience. Or someone who has an extreme quality to know and understand their audience and help them with the right thing at the right time.
To be more business-oriented, influencers are those with the potential to affect the purchase-decision of their followers.
To be an influencer, first of all, you need to choose a platform, like LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, etc. Then select your niche in which you want to produce content that your audience loves; and connect with them to a deeper level.
Meet Juhi Singh; she is a LinkedIn Influencer and her posts are one of my favorite things in my LinkedIn feeds. And as an influencer she believes, its a good choice for college students, but it’s less a business and more a lifestyle. It’s your willingness to connect with your audience than the urge to earn from them.
When asked; should college students start their career as an influencer, she told:
Sometimes, amazing content doesn’t get picked up or doesn’t get the number of visits it deserves. As influencers have strong and regular readerships, collaborating with them will guarantee that your message gets read.
And, that’s the reason brands choose influencers for their marketing purpose.
In short, being an influencer is all about building yourself as a brand.
The more you can influence your audience, the more you are paid by the companies. This is how you will become a highly paid influencer. But, remember, your audience is your real strength as an influencer.
8. Dropshipping
Dropshipping business is not that easy as it looks.
You need to do a lot of research about the dropshipping companies and also whether your location is preferable for a dropshipping business. After researching the dropshipping companies you can start connecting to the drop shipping companies and list all the items which you want to sell.
Dropshipping is a kind of modified-made-easy supply chain for conducting an eCommerce business, in which you attach yourself to a supplier company that provides you details of the items you can promote on your platforms and bring them orders. Rest, such as inventory, products, shipping, etc are managed by the dropshipping companies. Read more about it
Some well known dropshipping companies are:
- Alibaba
- Doba
- National Dropshippers
Now you can take orders from your customers and send them the ordered goods at their doorsteps through the dropshipping company and in between, you can earn a lot of money. This is how you can monetize your business
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9. Photography
If you are a photographer or have an interest in photography then you can definitely choose it as a college business.
Now that you must be thinking that for photography you need to have a DSLR or a great pixel camera, this is not the case you can just click good pictures only by using your mobile camera.
You can click some good pictures of nature, portraits, etc. and sell those on various online photography platforms such as Shutterstock and Pixabay
Many photographers charge a lot and you can take inspiration from them, learn from their success stories.
10. Write and Sell ebooks
A good amount of money can be generated only by selling e-books.
What is an eBook?
Ebooks are online, self-published short (10-50 pages) books in digital format written primarily on topics or subjects that can be fictional or non-fictional for a targeted audience.
To write an eBook as a college student, you need to have enough knowledge of the domain/niche in which you will be writing your eBooks. After writing an awesome ebook, publish it online or sell it on your own website or other platforms.
You can publish on:
- Amazon Kindle
- Google Play
- Via email
- Social media platforms
Remember a quality ebook can be sold easily only when it will benefit the buyers.
Conclusion
You can pick one of the 10 business ideas for college students and start as a student enraptures in college days.
At times, you might fail but that doesn’t mean you should stop learning or trying again. Failures are part of life and you can always learn from your failures.
Start, fail, start again, stay consistent in your efforts, and have self-confidence then, you will grow your business.
Start early, upskill yourself and become a student entrepreneur.
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