Close Menu
  • Home
  • Conferences
    • Training
  • Scholarships
    • Undergraduate
    • Short Courses
    • Online Courses
    • Masters/Postgraduate
    • PhD
    • Postdoctoral
    • Study Abroad
      • Study in Africa
      • Study in Asia
      • Study in Australia
      • Study in Europe
      • Study in USA
  • Competitions
    • Awards
  • Grants
  • Fellowships
  • Jobs
    • Internships
    • Volunteering
  • Blog
    • OD Specials
      • OD Live Series
      • Young Person of the Month
      • Mentorship
        • OD Mentors
    • Success Stories
    • How-To
    • General Tips
  • ODIC 2023
    • ODIC 2023 Application
    • ODIC Judges
    • ODIC 2023 Winners
    • ODIC 2022 Winners
    • ODIC 2021 Winners
    • ODIC 2019 Winners
    • ODIC 2018 Winners
    • ODIC 2017 Winners
    • ODIC 2016 Winners
  • Search
    • Asia
    • Africa
    • Australia and Oceania
    • America
    • Europe
Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
Sunday, May 18
  • About Us
    • Partners
  • Submit Opportunity
  • Deadlines
  • Nominate #YPOM
  • Promote
  • Privacy Policy
  • Disclaimer
  • Contact
Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn Instagram Telegram
Opportunity Desk
  • Home
  • Conferences
    • Training
  • Scholarships
    • Undergraduate
    • Short Courses
    • Online Courses
    • Masters/Postgraduate
    • PhD
    • Postdoctoral
    • Study Abroad
      • Study in Africa
      • Study in Asia
      • Study in Australia
      • Study in Europe
      • Study in USA
  • Competitions
    • Awards
  • Grants
  • Fellowships
  • Jobs
    • Internships
    • Volunteering
  • Blog
    • OD Specials
      • OD Live Series
      • Young Person of the Month
      • Mentorship
        • OD Mentors
    • Success Stories
    • How-To
    • General Tips
  • ODIC 2023
    • ODIC 2023 Application
    • ODIC Judges
    • ODIC 2023 Winners
    • ODIC 2022 Winners
    • ODIC 2021 Winners
    • ODIC 2019 Winners
    • ODIC 2018 Winners
    • ODIC 2017 Winners
    • ODIC 2016 Winners
  • Search
    • Asia
    • Africa
    • Australia and Oceania
    • America
    • Europe
Opportunity Desk
Home»Our Blog»Top 8 Business Ideas For College Students Pressed For Time

Top 8 Business Ideas For College Students Pressed For Time

Opportunity DeskFebruary 24, 20208 Mins Read
Facebook Twitter WhatsApp Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email Telegram

It’s a rare student who doesn’t want to make extra money in college. With yearly increases in college tuition and fees, more and more students look for additional sources of income to sustain their life. Some students take part-time jobs in cafes, parking lots, supermarkets, or fast food restaurants, while others decide to move into self-employment and give their business venture a shot. Much has been said and written about starting up businesses in college. The Internet is teeming with “useful recommendations” and “practical business tips” that promise to enlighten startup entrepreneurs about the fundamentals and subtleties of running a successful business. But lots of them prove to be ineffective and hard to put into practice. Below are some truly practicable business ideas you’ll be able to carry out while studying in college. So, it’s just about time you contacted a reliable essay writing service that can make your essay for you and devote your precious time to reviewing those ideas and recommendations. Note all the suggested ideas can be put into action without considerable investments.

#1 Public Notary

This business venture is quite interesting since the majority of students merely don’t regard it as a viable business idea to pursue.

To become a public notary, you’ll need to obtain a license that will cost you about one hundred dollars or so. Be sure to do some research prior to submitting your notary application and peruse all the necessary information pertinent to becoming a public notary in your state. Once you application is approved, you’ll get the license that will allow you to notarize important documents and act as an impartial witness in official fraud deterrent acts. You can charge up to fifty dollars for signing a document or two, which can be good money for a college student striving to make ends meet. Moreover, you can help people notarize personal loan agreements and make profit from that.

Still, getting certified isn’t the only component of your business venture’s success. You need to invest a considerable amount of time and energy into advertising your services. It’s a good idea to join a local Facebook selling groups or Facebook Marketplace to promote your startup. Lots of people still search for employees and services in the classified sections of a good old newspaper. So, be sure to place an ad in at least one local newspaper. Also, post a free commercial ad on Craigslist to boost your business’ chances of success.

#2 Gaming

The second thing you might look into is making money from video games. Of course, not every student will be able to avail themselves of this idea. But avid gamers will definitely appreciate it.

There are two main places that can help you turn your hobby into a profitable business. The first would be Twitch, which is a very popular place to do live-streaming. So, you can set up a camera to put on your face, talk over the game, or provide detailed walkthroughs of your game. You want to check out created by the most popular streamers on Twitch and try to understand what makes so many people follow them. That being said, you need to figure out something unique to attract your audience. Don’t just emulate and mimic those who have already made a success of their gaming. If you want to show people how to play through  a certain game, defeat bosses, or just provide a detailed review of your games, YouTube is probably better for this kind of stuff. But if you’re into live-streaming, opt for Twitch instead.

#3 Writing

We’ll bet you get tons of college assignments to write on a daily basis. Though some students who find writing dreary and mind-numbing, there are also those who consider writing their cup of tea. If you’re particularly good at writing, it’s about time you started monetizing your skills. Consider going to the individual websites that pay writers per article. In average, beginner writers get around fifty dollars for a 3-page article. But this figure may vary from website to website and is highly dependable on your aptitude. Make sure to familiarize yourself with the types of articles that get accepted and published on there. And if you’re a good writer you might be able to earn decent money on a regular basis.

If you want to find overall writing jobs by contract, part-time, full-time, or freelance, you can check out such popular websites and writing job boards like Upwork, Guru, Clearvoice.com, Problogger.com, etc. These resources are widely used for freelance writers that want to spot decent paying writing gigs. 

#4 Transcription, Captioning, and Subtitling

Another thing you can do to stay financially afloat in college is help with videos and more specifically, transcribing, captioning, and subtitling. This has to do with making it to where people can see subtitles and read along with the video in the process of watching it. The captioned text will be then uploaded back to YouTube or will be used for making a blog post out of it. So, you’ll be turning videos to into text and putting proper grammar and punctuation in there. Such websites as Rev.com and Speechpad.com can come a long way in helping you find captioning and transcription jobs.

Turning the video into text isn’t hard, but quite time-consuming an activity. So you need to make sure you can spare enough time to devote to this gig.  

#5 Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is another business niche where you can achieve success. There’s a couple of ways that you can actually make money from that without having to sell products and creating your website.

One way to do that is to get paid by brands for tweeting about their products and services. Sponsored tweets are a great opportunity to make extra cash for promoting cleaning services or fitness clothing lines. As you grow on social media brands will start approaching you via email or private messages and offer cooperation. You can also start selling accounts on various platforms such as ViralAccounts. Consider this option if you’re good at building different accounts on various social media like Facebook Pages, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Tumblr, or YouTube channels. You can sell whole accounts provided that you meet certain qualifications as far as like engaged followers and the amount of traffic your account gets. In other words, you can sell only viral accounts that will be of considerable avail in promoting certain brands, products, or services.

#6 Delivery Services    

There are a lot of things you can deliver now. A couple of them are food and packages. You can do UberEATS, DoorDash, or GrubHub, which are the most popular delivery services that pay well. All you need to do is sign up as a driver or become a delivery partner, which means that you’ll be getting a certain amount of money per delivery. You can also do multiple at a time to make more money.

Another thing you can do is deliver packages for Amazon, which is the way they can bypass normal shipping by paying the individual for delivering these packages. You can make 18 to 25 dollars per hour, which is good extra money you can make in your free time. Similar jobs are just perfect for students since they allow for flexible hours and let you build your own schedule. Plus, everything is pretty much taken care of through the app.

#7 Graphic Design

If you’re an artistic person you can sell your skills on pretty much any website. There’s Upwork or Guru.com. If you want to go to graphic design specific websites and you don’t feel like creating your own website yet, you can take advantage of 99designs, DesignCrowd, or Fiverr, which help beginner graphic designers find well-paid gigs. Not only are these sites affordable but they also have a wide array of categories where all the transactions, negotiation, and payments are done and managed securely. You can make labels for products, book covers, logos, etc. You can either do like one-on-one type of work where they hire you specifically or you can participate in a competition where the best design wins and gets a bunch of money. 

# 8 Phone Repair

It’s a rare person who doesn’t spend countless hours on their smartphones. And just like any gadget smartphones get buggy, have lagging issues, and just break down. And if you know a little bit how to fix gadgets, cell phones in particular, you can start up smartphone repair business. All you need to do is avail yourself of a smartphone repair kit and probably practice a little bit before getting down to repair your clients’ gadgets. There’s no need to open a physical repair shop or anything like that. You can start out if you’re living in the dorm or an apartment. If you do well you may want to expand your business and get your own store.

For more articles, visit OD Blog.

Share. Facebook Twitter WhatsApp LinkedIn Email Pinterest Telegram
Previous ArticleEcobank Fintech Challenge 2020 for African Startups (Up to $10,000 prize)
Next Article YouthLead Turning Point Contest 2020 for Young Changemakers
Avatar photo
Opportunity Desk
  • Website

Opportunity Desk is the one stop place for all global opportunities. Connect with us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram - @opportunitydesk

Related Posts

How AI Essay Generators are Revolutionising Academic Writing

May 16, 2025

How to Write and Win Your First Grant Like a Pro.

May 11, 2025

13 Opportunities for Women & Women-Led Businesses  Currently Open – May 10, 2025

May 10, 2025




OD YPOM – Gift Kisakye

Gift Kisakye From Uganda is OD Young Person of the month – May 2025. Read more.




Latest Posts
  • S+T+ARTS Aqua Motion – Open Call for Artistic Residencies 2025 (up to €40,000)
  • SFA Foundation Africa Science Journalism Awards (ASJA) 2025
  • AWARD Climate Action (ACA) Fellowship 2025
  • AI x City Climate Action Hackathon 2025
  • Asia Gender Equality Fund 3.0 for Non-profit Organisations
  • International Photography Contest “Educating the Eye” 2025 (€5,000 total prize)
  • Presidential Leadership Scholars Class of 2026 (Fully-funded)
  • CANEX Shorts Competition 2025 for Young Filmmakers in Africa
Follow on Twitter
Tweets by @OpportunityDesk
Follow Us on Social Media

facebook   Instagram   LinkedIn   Twitter   YouTube

Receive Opportunity Alerts!

Join over 100,000 email subscribers to receive weekly summary of opportunities. Sign up here.

Opportunity Desk Email Alerts!

Join over 100,000 email subscribers to receive weekly summary of opportunities. Sign up here.

Copyright © Opportunity Desk
  • About Us
    • Partners
  • Submit Opportunity
  • Deadlines
  • Nominate #YPOM
  • Promote
  • Privacy Policy
  • Disclaimer
  • Contact

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.

Ad Blocker Enabled!
Ad Blocker Enabled!
Our website is made possible by displaying online advertisements to our visitors. Please support us by disabling your Ad Blocker.