Advait Thakur founded Apex Infosys India when he was around 12 years old.
Sreelakshmi Suresh was about 11 years old when she set up her Web Design company called eDesign and TinyLogo.
These are only 2 of the many students who have stepped into entrepreneurial roles while still in school. Yes, education and qualifications are important but where there’s a will, there’s a way and age should not be taken as a hurdle to achieving one’s ambitions. Back when start-ups weren’t so trendy, you probably heard of children selling lemonade from their gardens. So, why not take it up a notch and start an empire while you’re still young. Let’s take a look at a few business ideas for students in India.
What Business Can I Start As A Student?
As a student who wants to be an entrepreneur, you have twin responsibilities – you must pay attention to your scholastic life as well as your business ideas. So, you need to choose your start up idea carefully. You need a project that you can manage by investing a maximum of an hour or two every day. Later, as the business grows, you can take on full-time employees who can work on your project while you study.
What Are The Good Startup Ideas?
Choose ideas and projects that leverage your strengths and skills. In today’s world, anything can be monetized and built into a business. For example, let’s say you like playing games. You could start a website where you write reviews. As your website gains tractions, you can start charging a subscription fee. There are many people who earn through YouTube tutorials.
Don’t take up an idea just because your friends are doing it. Your best friend may be a blogger but your strength may lie not in the written word but in photo editing. Identify your core strengths and then look for ways to monetize it.
What Are The Best Startup Ideas In India?
For this article, let’s focus on startup ideas in India for college students. Once you’re a college student, your schedule has a little more freedom and you have more maturity than you did as a child. Your chances of success are thus, definitely higher.
What Business Can A 16 Year Old Start?
‘16’ is a great age – you’re brimming with ideas and have lots of energy. Channel this energy towards building a brand for yourself. As a teenager, the options available are limitless – you can become an Amazon reseller, an artist, a coder… You will face competition in every field so pick a direction that interests you and where you think you have an edge over others. For example, if your family owns a farm, you could build a brand of jams and pickles with farm-grown produce. You could even start with a family recipe.
Here Are The Best Startup Ideas For College Students In India.
Start A Blog
We’ve already talked about this. Blogging is a great idea for students. You can blog about anything –games, fashion, technology, movies – there’s no end to subjects. The key to running a successful blog is creating good content and publishing consistently.
Another advantage of starting a blog – it requires minimal financial commitment. You can actually start a blog for free on sites like blogger.com. as it gains tractions, you can buy domain space. Later, you could also look at coding the page to customize the design.
Related: Top 10 Money Making Small Business Ideas in Chennai
Tutoring
Tutoring is one of the oldest startup ideas for college students in India. If you are exceptionally good in any subject, you can start tutoring your juniors. Tutoring need not be limited to scholastic subjects. You can even start short online and offline courses for hobbies like baking or playing the guitar.
Yes, there is a lot of competition in this space. But, if you have a good command over your subject and you can teach well, you won’t face a dearth of students.
Social Media Management
Make the time you spend on social media into a business. One way is to become an influencer. Another is to manage other social media handles. Many brands outsource the management of their social media handles as they don’t have the time for this. A social media manager is responsible for strategizing posts and campaigns. It’s challenging and gives you opportunities to think out of the box. Start by managing one brand and before you know it, you could be heading a team that manages social media campaigns for a dozen companies.
Web Design And Development
If you have a passion for coding and programming, setting up a web design and development agency is a great startup business ideas for college students in India. There are plenty of businesses that want to build an online presence but haven’t got around to it. Reach out to them and make them an offer to design and develop a website. Restaurants, electronic shops and general departmental stores are a good place to start. As few as 3 clients are enough to start your business.
E-Commerce
Setting up an e-commerce store to sell a product is quite simple. You don’t even have to have a website. All you really need is the right product selection. Pick a category you know and understand well. Since you won’t want to or have the budget to invest in big-ticket items, look for niche products. Maybe you know a ceramic artist from whom you can get unique crockery or maybe you like travelling and know where to find good travel bags and accessories. If you need help figuring it out, reach out to use here.
Photo Editing
If you like graphics and have an artistic side, you could look into setting up a photo editing agency. Today, anyone can take a photograph with their smartphones but these photographs often lack finesse. This is where you could position your service.
You can also create a brand by giving photographs an artistic look. For example, you could trace and edit family photographs to make them look like a sketch.
Styling
So, you like fashion and you know how to put together a great look for every season. Building a brand as a stylist is ideal for you. You probably won’t get a celebrity client right away but who knows the future. Find clients in your society who like your sense of style. You can offer your services over video call or shop for clients online.
Content Marketing
If you have a way with words, you should start creating marketing content. It may sound simple but not everyone can write compelling content. You can start up as a freelancer and work with content agencies. As you build up a network, you can start your own content agency. There are many different types of content you can work with – content for social media campaigns, internal company communication content, marketing collateral and so on. All you need to start a content marketing agency is good writing skills, a laptop and an ability to convince clients.
Related Article: What Is the Scope of E Commerce and How Does It Work?
Pop-Up Food Truck
Setting up a restaurants is a lot of work and not very feasible as a student. But, you can set up a pop-up food truck. As the name suggests, pop-up food trucks are food trucks that ‘pop up’ every once in a while. Sweetish House Mafia is a well known cookie brand today but when they started out, it was from the back of their car. The brand used social media to tell their customers where they were going to be and when, and the customers came. After all the product was good. Like them, you can start up as a food truck and later maybe branch out to a café.
Handmade Products
Today, any product with a tag that says ‘handmade’ commands a premium price. So, if you know how to knit, draw, crochet, etc. you could start your own label and market your crafts. You can make stock and sell them or take pre-orders. This is a great way to hone your skills and get paid while you do so.
Getting A Mentor
Getting ideas for your business is the easy part. Every month, hundreds of businesses and born but not all of them do well. Having a mentor to guide you along the way can be very beneficial. Your mentor should be someone with experience in what you’re trying to do. You’ll also find plenty of research and learning material online.
If you’re thinking of becoming an Amazon Seller, take a look at these courses. Or, better still, book a consultation with your Amazon seller coach, Leo, here.
So, what are you waiting for – let’s get started!
