6 Small Businesses I Should Have Started In College
Posted on September 13, 2007
In college I had a lot of free time. I was one of the lucky ones that after serving four years in the Marines received the GI Bill to go to college. It was enough money that by going to a state school I could live very comfortably off the money. The free time was great, and I did work a few odd jobs off and on. I lifeguarded one summer, refereed high school basketball games, and did a few other odd jobs when the occasion presented itself. Nothing too time consuming though and definitely nothing in Corporate America, at least until late my senior year when I realized I probably should get an internship so I can have a job waiting for me when I graduated. Sometimes I reflect on the college years when I had the opportunity and time to do pretty much whatever I wanted and think I should have looked into starting one of these very small businesses just for the experience of it:
- Hot dog stand. My girlfriend hates that I still entertain the notion of doing this sometime. I think it would be pretty cool to set up at football games, carnivals, or late night outside the clubs and see how I could do. I priced out the hot dog stands and equipment and there is a somewhat sizable amount of overhead to get started.
- Landscaping business. I mowed yards in middle school and early high school and made a few dollars doing this. It is nice being able to set your schedule, but in Florida it is killer hot.
- Cleaning service. We have a commercial service that comes in and cleans our office at work and it has to be one of the easiest contracts. Our office is very clean to begin with and all they do is empty the garbage and maybe vacuum once a month. Either way I can never tell if it has been vacuumed or not.
- Vending business. A little tough to break into but has a lot of potential.
- Lunch box catering business. At a lot of workplaces I see people going out to lunch spending $5-$10 each day so they are already spending the money. There are services that will provide a good, healthy lunch delivered to your workplace each day. Does require some early morning work getting everything ready, as long as you don’t take on too many customers it could be a good source of income.
- Pedicab driver. These just got big in Orlando about four years ago and have taken off since then, annoying car drivers to no end. The pedicab drivers rent the bikes each night from an owner/vendor who sells advertising spots on the bike. The pedicab driver keeps all the tips and the owner keeps the advertising profits. You can find these bikes for sale used all the time (craigslist/ebay). If I were a freshman going into college I would save up and buy one of the bikes, ride it each night downtown, and bank off the tips while staying in shape riding people around for a few hours. Friday and/or Saturday night alone would pay for a lot of textbooks.
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4 Responses to “6 Small Businesses I Should Have Started In College”
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I was just thinking of rickshaws about a week ago and had the same thought–boy, I should have thought of that in college. Tell your girlfriend she might be in for a long battle–by long-retired father still has fantasies of opening “Frank’s Franks”.
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