As a student, there are businesses you can start on campus that require little capital. There are even some of them that only require your creativity.
You need to understand starting a business isn’t only for those who already have financial freedom, students can start small businesses on campus even with little savings from their monthly upkeep.
Here are the sources of funding for you to begin your entrepreneurial journey as a student:
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Fund it Yourself
Most times, it’s best to have something to start with. Even when friends and family members are ready to support your business idea, they want to see what you’ve put in place.
Starting a T-shirt business on campus is one of the easy-to-start ventures because it doesn’t require huge capital. There are beautifully designed and simple T-shirt eCommerce portals you can subscribe to.
You can get started with as little as $100. Download photos of t-shirts to start marketing them on social media. The safest way to start this is by placing an order based on requests from your colleagues.
Start an outdoor fitness exercise
Hundreds of your colleagues are always looking for ways to keep fit without paying for a gym membership, so starting an outdoor fitness exercise will be a good start for you.
To make the training fees flexible, you can go for daily, weekly or monthly charges. For instance, if the monthly fee for the training is N6,000 per participant, you can allow students who can’t bear the monthly cost at once to subscribe for the daily payment, say N200.
For instance, if you have 50 students on your train who make a daily payment, you could make N10, 000 per day. Students like to have fun and keep fit, most especially when it’s group training.
The beauty of this is that you don’t need gym equipment, jugging and other aerobic exercises can be done on the school field.
To make this more effective, start marketing the outdoor training exercise at the beginning of the session.
If you are a student in the United Kingdom, you can set up a trail on MeetUp.com and lead groups of people to fabulous locations.
Explore Personal Network
One of the ways you can raise capital for your business idea as a student is to pitch your idea to your colleagues who share in your dream.
You should know those who are business-minded among your colleagues, talk to them, and seek their financial support. If they are interested they can make provision for capital to kick start your business.
Pitch your idea to angel investors
If you have a great business idea but lack the capital, angel investors should be on top of your list of sources of funds. They are investors who are interested in making provisions for funds in exchange for a stake in the business.
Angel investors do not only provide the capital, they also have a mentorship course for their partners, most especially if your business ideas have great potential.
As a student entrepreneur, you can start attending workshops, seminars, and conventions for entrepreneurs, most times, where business investors are always on the look for a great business idea they pump in some money into for a stake.
Set Up a YouTube Channel
You can raise good money on YouTube which you can use to kick start your business on campus by setting up a channel.
Encourage your colleagues to subscribe to your channel, tell new students about it, and share useful videos that will help students solve problems. Turn your YouTube channel to a solution centre.
You can start to generate revenue when Google Adsense places Ads on your channel, you can publish videos in exchange for profit (sponsored videos).
Pick an area of interest, it could be ‘how to succeed as a newcomer to the University of Lagos’, ‘how to pass MTH113’, etc
Let your topic be what poses challenges to your fellow students and newcomers. Solve problem. It’s a great way to start.
Sell old clothes for a profit
Selling old clothes is a great way to raise funds for students. The clothes do not have to be your own. You can venture into thrift clothing, which is popularly known in Nigeria as ‘bend down and select’ . Popular markets known for thrift clothing include Yaba Market, Tejuoso, and Katangua Market all in Lagos and Garki Market in Abuja should be your stop to buy them at cheap rates.
You can have great savings from this system and even set up a large collection of clothes for sale.
For foreign students in the UK, sites like Freecycle and Gumtree will be a perfect match for selling your upcycled goods.
Provide laundry service to your colleagues
If you’re a big boy on campus, this isn’t for you. This is one of the easiest ways to raise money on campus to complement the insufficient upkeep you get from your parents.
The beauty of this is that there are students who are ready to pay you for washing and ironing their clothes.
The profit from your laundry service can be used to expand your business or even employ more people to do the job.
Start a blog
Do you write on the campus’ board? Why not start a blog? Pick a topic you are passionate about.
The few data bundles you use per day on social media like Instagram, and Facebook can be channelled to develop content for your blog.
As your viewership grows, you monetize it to earn revenue from your content. You can also partner with brands whose businesses align with your content.
Publish an e-learning tutorial
To get started, speak to colleagues who are experts in a specific field. Paste banners of your e-learning tutorial on departmental boards with your contact details.
Make money from social media
Today, hundreds of college students have turned social media into a money-making machine.
You could choose to be an Instagram model, or a TikTok model, in no time you will see your followers grow, and companies will reach out to you for ad placement.
You could be signed up as a product Ambassador in a multi-million dollar contract, especially if you are lucky to find companies that are relevant to your brand.
Also, you can subscribe to X premium and monetize you handle.
Explore and sell on creative marketplaces
If you are creative and ready to turn your skills into money, then sign up on Fiverr and Gumroad to cash in on your talents.
Run a delivery service on campus
Some campuses occupy millions of square meters, the distance between department A to department ZX may take up to 30 minutes of trekking. Someone is somewhere looking for someone to run an errand for them, the good part, they are ready to pay for your service.
You can use your bicycle if you have one to start a mini-campus delivery business.
Start a tutoring service
There are parents in the host community of your institutions who need private tutors for their kids.
For instance, if you’re studying Statistics, organise mathematics classes for your counterparts in the faculty of Social Sciences who may be taking maths as one of their mandatory courses.
You can start charging N200 per session. Imagine you have 50 students per session, that’s N10, 000. If you have three sessions in a week, that’s N30, 000 per week.
In Nigeria, most times, you could have 100 students per session (3 per week), which will translate to N240,000 per month. After all expenses, you can save the rest to set up your business or employ more hands.
Set up a language course
Do you know that bilingual students can turn their language skills into money? Most especially language like French, Mandarin, and German is increasingly becoming high in demand.
You would be surprised by the positive response you will get if you try this out. Why not start making money from something that probably seems completely natural to you?
To go global, you can post your language skills on Fiverr and also set up a language class on Skype to enable you sell your services to people all around in the comfort of your room.
Crowdfunding
Crowdfunding involves soliciting funds through donations from the general public, this is another source of capital for students who want to set up their businesses on campus.
School Loans
Apart from school loans for academic expenses, there are some countries where students can apply and get business loans.
Most times, only students who have a job with a salary have the highest chances of obtaining credit facilities, but the recent re-enactment of student loan in Nigeria may likely be a major breakthrough if the government is sincere about it.
Sell original work on Etsy
Etsy is the best place to sell your original works. The money you earn from Etsy can be deployed to set up your business.
Become a survey enumerator
During the TraderMoni programme in Nigeria, the official company that was in charge of the disbursement of the soft loan needed an enumerator on the field.
Students who enrolled as enumerators made cool cash. The payment was based on the number of market women and beneficiaries each enumerator was able to register.
In the end, some enumerators made as much as N100, 000 and above, depending on their location.
You can also enrol as an enumerator for a survey company that needs the opinions of people who use their products.
Become a model for stock photographs
If you didn’t know you could make money off stock photos, it’s time to get in front camera and get paid for your realistic shots. You can raise funds for your business by selling photos online.
Offer a CV design or review service
You make money by reviewing or writing CVs online, being a résumé reviewer is another great way to complement your parents’ financial support as an undergraduate.
Get government-supported loan
Government-backed loans is a great way to support your startup. Interest on government loans is usually more friendly than the conventional banks.
Offer a transcription service
Are you a good listener and good at transcribing? Start turning lectures into a readable format and sell them to absentees.
Become a freelancer
Upwork and Fiverr are some of the platforms where there are hundreds of freelancing jobs in several skills. Pick the one you’re good at and start pitching to get paid.
Provide LinkedIn Optimization Service
Writing LinkedIn profile and SEO optimization using keywords on the professional platform is another great way for student who has perfectly mastered how LinkedIn works can make good money by providing this service.
LinkedIn is mostly used by job recruiters, most times, job seekers want a professional LinkedIn optimization expert to help them tailor their profile to appear on relevant searches.
I want to start a business buying and selling and capital is my problem how can it get loan
Hey, what kind of business do you want to venture into? For us to make a recommendation
I’m interested in your programs, I’m an undergraduate in one of Nigeria universities, I need programme that will enable me to be self-reliance after my degree
Hello Desmond, what are you good at, do you have any special skills? You can explore the business ideas in this post