As a student, starting a small business can be a great way to generate passive income and reduce tuition debt.

It will also help you to gain first-hand experience in the corporate world and set yourself on the path of startup success.

There are many business ideas, but not all are suitable for students. Any small business you will be engaging in should not interfere with your education.

Below are some small business ideas that require startup capital students can easily afford;

Textbook Business

You do not need to dispose of your old textbooks. They can be resold at a second-hand value. At the end of the academic session, ask classmates willing to gift out their textbooks or offer to buy them.

This can also be replicated for senior classes while you resell to your classmates.

There are different platforms and online forums for students’ connections. Leverage them to advertise available books for sale.

It will amaze you the number of students interested in purchasing second books to save cost.

Branded souvenirs

There are usually various occasions that require celebration. This is another opportunity to leverage.

Inform friends, classmates and lecturers you can supply them with branded souvenirs such as coffee mugs, pens, and beer can coolers. They can be used as birthday, anniversary, and valentine’s gifts.

Established business owners are also prospective buyers because such products can be used for promotional purposes.

You can launch a basic e-commerce website to display your products. The exciting thing is that you do not need to handle the manufacturing of these products yourself.

Some companies offer unbranded custom printed tote bags, which you can instruct to be designed so that it appears you handled it yourself.

T-Shirt Business

There is always demands T-shirt with slogans and pop culture designs. If there is trending slang on campus, you can commercialize it by printing it on T-shirts to sell to other students.

Aside from it being lucrative and low-risk, the T-shirt business requires less capital to start. You can leave the production and shipping to a fulfillment company.

Since you may have limited time to walk around marketing your T-shirt to students, consider creating an online store to showcase available designs.

Posting the cloth designs on student forums, such as the school or department Facebook group, can also bring sales.

Sale of handmade products

If you are creative or good at making handcrafted products, it is time to make cool cash with your skill.

In case you do not have any of such skills at the moment but interested in the business, you can dedicate your spare time to learning it.

Some of the lucrative handmade products you can make to sell include jewelry, crochets, and tie-dye clothes.

Artistic students can also make money by drawing portraits which can be ordered as a gift for a loved one.

To promote your small business, you might sketch a portrait of students’ favorite lecturer. Sign it, and include your contact information so that people who admire your work can reach out to request for your service.

Dropshipping

Fashion products are one of the highest-selling online products. Students are one of the major buyers of these products.

Start a dropshipping business to market and start selling to them. Dropshipping allows you to sell goods without needing to buy them upfront.

You will need to be good at marketing to pull this off. The technique allows you to sell the product at any price you prefer. Once there is an order, you reach out to the manufacturer, who then ships directly to the customer just like they had ordered from them.

Offer delivery service

If you have a bike or car, you can use it to run delivery errands. Not possessing any of these should not discourage you.

You can start your delivery service whereby you help students with errands. To reduce the stress of walking around, the service may stipulate that students book at least one hour ahead while you also note the time you would be available to run the errands.

The errands can then be aggregated so that you can fulfil more than one order at once since they may be on the same route.

Freelancing

There are many firms in need of freelancers. Skills in high demand include content writing, digital marketing, graphic designing, tester and programming.

These skills can be learned online through YouTube videos and free digital courses.

Google, for instance, offers a free digital marketing course and certification.