You did it

The benefits of developing an online business while you’re in college are that it won’t cost you much money to start-up and will be profitable if you hit on a good idea. As a cash-strapped university student, one of the things that may go through your mind on a regularly basis, particularly when you have bills to pay, is how you might get more cash. Rather than work another shift at McDonald’s, you might be interested in making money off the internet.

I would not be surprised if you were skeptical when you came across this article. With all the scams out there it’s hard to imagine that anyone genuinely makes money off the net. However, there are legitimate ways to make money. First answer these questions which may help you to come up with some ideas.

1) What skills do you have?

2) What are people’s needs?

3) How can you fulfill these needs over the internet?

Okay let’s start with a few examples.

One of the main ways that people make money online is writing e-books (you can do this for free on Amazon and keep 70% of the revenue).

Writing blogs is also a way you can make money, slowly. I haven’t tried this method, and it can take a long time, but if you start up a successful blog, people will pay you for advertising space.

If you have experience in a discipline, you can offer short courses and charge a subscription fee. For example, if you are an expert make-up artist you may wish to create a small magazine and then charge people a subscription fee. Examples of online courses include TEFL, writing, foreign languages and business courses.

Another way is to start an online retail business. This involves buying product from a manufacturer, importer, or retailer and selling it to consumers. While this can take a lot of time and research, it does not cost as much to start up as you would think.

However, before you start heading in this direction, I recommend reading a few biographies of people who have already started up online retail companies to see how they have done it and to see how you can copy them.

One of my favorite websites is ExpatWomen, which has biographies of women living overseas, who have started up businesses. Ellie Badanes started up The Pajama Company, selling pajamas online, giving her the opportunity to work from home while wearing her pajamas.

Another example of an internet business which was started up by two university students, with little start up capital is KiwiOz Nannies, which was started up by Lisa Rutledge and Rachel Ogg. This company now has a global turnover approaching US $1 million.

Finally, remember that if it looks too good to be true it probably is; focus on using your skills to fulfill other people’s needs and you should not go wrong.

(Guest post)

(Image by ilco, via stock.xchng)