A lot of famous billionaires declare that if they could go back in time, they would have started their business activities earlier. Entrepreneurship is a real option for young people nowadays, which offers several advantages at a more mature age.
The sooner you promote your business talents, the better positioned you will be for your future career. We suggest considering some interesting ideas with minimal investment that every student can implement.
Why it matters
Entrepreneurship helps young people develop both personally and professionally. Some of the benefits of pursuing business ideas as a student include:
- Business experience. Sure, university or business school can teach you theories and formulas, but nothing is better and more effective than doing business in practice, with all the nuances and social, political and economic context. When you graduate, you will know how things really work.
- Confident leadership. Develop your personal skills in empathy, delegation, stress management, communicating with clients, and so on. Entrepreneurial students have an advantage over other graduates when they enter the job market. The leadership skills they learn in practice are just as valuable as the knowledge they acquire at university.
- Important contacts. Even before you graduate, you will have already built up an established network of contacts with people you can turn to for guidance, mentoring, business partnerships, or employment.
- Career foresight. By starting your own business, you’ll understand your vulnerabilities and hidden talents. At 17, choosing what you want to do for a lifetime is almost impossible. Entrepreneurship helps you understand what your measure of success is, what you want and where you need to go next.
- Profitable prospects. The resume of the average university graduate is usually monotonous, boring, and doesn’t stand out in any way. Even if your entrepreneurial experience as a student is not entirely successful, in the race for talent the ‘founder of a company’ column on your CV will stand out from other job applications.
Business ideas for students
No matter where you study now is the perfect time to start a business. Young energy, youthful enthusiasm, and confidence are the key to leaping entrepreneurship. Here are a few beginner’s business ideas that don’t require a big investment and can even be done from your dorm room.
1. Tutoring
Nowadays, the world is ruled by information. The knowledge you have now can be far more valuable than you realize. As early as your first year of university, you can prepare future applicants for admission, share your experiences, and relay what you’ve learned in class. An alternative is to work in an essay writing service where you can help students and pupils with their assignments.
In a pandemic, lessons can be held online – don’t be afraid to show what you are capable of and what you have already achieved. Your experience can be useful to hundreds of thousands of people who are willing to pay money for it.
2. Summer camp
In your spare time, particularly during the summer holidays, organize an interesting and informative activity for the children. It is no longer a problem to find a beautiful and interesting location where students can share experiences with school children and spend their leisure time.
Parents are tired of old holiday camps where their children are taught by “old school” teachers in ambiguous ways. If you have experience of interacting with children and you are not afraid of responsibility, develop an interesting leisure program for schoolchildren, assemble an equally responsive team and implement such an initiative.
3. Tourism
While the world is slowly coming to its senses from quarantine and isolation, plenty of people are craving real interaction with other people. If you’re studying in a big or historic city, you might consider organizing walking interactive tours. Not all foreign destinations are available nowadays, so domestic tourism is a goldmine that now can bring a good profit.
All you have to do is learn interesting facts about the area where you study, create a unique itinerary, and gather a group of people who want to learn more about the city where you are now living.