Summer Businesses for High School Students? 184
An anonymous reader asks: "A friend and I are going into our final year of high school, and given a variety of factors (the relative paucity of technology jobs for HS students, etc.), would like to start our own business. We'll probably have about $1000 in capital, but (in effect) start out with no other resources other than our own skills (technical and otherwise). We have no constant access to a car, which means on-site tech support is effectively out. We'd like to start something in the technology field (IT, software design, hardware construction - we can solder, web design, etc.), but are open to any suggestions. We'd also like some sort of business we can start this summer, but can continue to maintain. What do you suggest as a business idea for the summer->longer term?"
okay, here's a freebie. (Score:4, Interesting)
first off, blaze (with accent.)?
it's blase. (with accent.)
here's the idea i am sure could make somebody a ton of money.
instead of refilling and rehabbing toner cartridges, do it for lcd projector bulb cartridges. almost all the time, you have to buy a new one- for a good chunk of change. a little googling found me a place or two where you can buy solely the bulb. clean the cartridge, and replace the bulb (being careful of course not to get oil on anything) and charge 1/2 to 2/3 of what a new projector bulb costs.
if i were mechanically inclined, i would do this. it's a growth industry. here at work, thanks to doofuses who can't remember how to turn off a projector, we can chew through a unit, at $330 per, in 6 months. and i know college professors aren't the only group of clueless projector users out there.
Re:A few quick ones (Score:2, Interesting)
Another new industry is take the trouble out of ebaying things. People drop of their stuff they want to sell, and you photogaph, list, pack, and ship it. You'll need a paypal account, digital camera, knowledge of how ebay works (both tech and market wise, go examine auctions for the same thing and see why prices vary), and it would help to have a supply of boxes.
Re:Mow Lawns (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:okay, here's a freebie. (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't count on moving here, though: Oregon's full.
I'm Surprised nobody mentioned Open Source (Score:4, Interesting)
1) So, given it takes money to make money, $1000 isn't going to net you much in ROI.
2) Instead, write something gratis that other people will use, and will give you something to put on your resume after college.
3) Open up a sourceforge account to organize your project. Do all the project planning work out in the open - project goals and descriptions, requirements, specs, docs, code. In the future, you can point people to this as a sample of your early work (keep it updated). Have a GUI (I don't recommend Web apps for something like this - too much infrastructure), write it in C++ (what I suggest), Java, or VB, depending on your talent and audience (and resources - Gnu C++ and Java are free).
4) People don't use 80% of software they buy - so make that 80% open-sourced 'infrastructure' libraries and such, and the remaining 20% closed-source plug-ins or specialized customizations (and a good installer - people tend to buy stuff that has a good installer).
5) If someone wants a feature or a bug fixed, see if they will pay for support.
6) Leverage other people for the product.
7) Learn how to market your product. Just see it as an experiment - don't be shy, be outgoing, and specifically, be clever.
Do some market research: go and figure out what someone wants to do that they can't do now, or that the software to do is expensive. How? Ask them!
The criterion for your research should be - you should have a representative sample of the population nearby, they probably should be a small business (since individuals don't pay much and usually need more prettiness-per-unit-usefulness than a small business solving a specific problem would need), they should have some general-purpose computers that are underleveraged (people do one or two applications on them (mail, word/excel/quicken, and Minesweeper) and don't really use them to their full potential).
Consider what target audiences you have around you: small, non-chain restaurants (specifically their back office); professional practices, like small dentist/physical therapist/massage therapists/chiropractor offices; the corner bodega - they might have a cash register, but no computer tracking of stock so they never quite know what their inventory is or how much to buy - sell them that. House painters/plumbers/small general contractors. Churches/Synagogues/Mosques.
Find something some group of the people above do that's tedius, and see if you can make it trivial. Don't be afraid to ask a lot of people, and say 'no' if it looks like too much - even if they will pay you. Do _not_ get in over your head.
KISS - keep it simple, silly. Bang-for-the-buck is the keyword for this sort of development. You are trying to make their lives better/easier/smarter, and they might need 'just one thing'. Consider the first spreadsheets - they merely edited columns of numbers and added them up correctly, and saved and read them to a file. This saved an _enormous_ amount of time for people who had to do this stuff day-in-day-out. Almost nothing subsequently has had as profound an impact on their lives as taking the grunt work out of moving raw numbers around with pen-and-paper.
-J
Re:There's little money left in comp industry.. (Score:5, Interesting)
2 and 3. There is still money to be made repairing PC's. People that tell you the only way to repair a Microsoft product is to wipe and re-install generally do not know what they are doing. If the first response I got from a consultant was wipe and re-install, I would look for another consultant. Most experianced techs can repair a Windows PC without wiping it.
4. Hardware issues can be fixed. Power supplies can be replaced. I have often replaced caps on a motherboard, or disabled a built in device on an expensive board then installed an add-on replacement. For example, we had a lightning strike in the area, lightning surged through an unprotected hub and took out 9 computers. On 8 of the computers I was able to disable the on board lan, install a NIC card and get them back on-line. The 9th PC and the hub was toast. I also find many hardware issues to simply be bad fans, faulty memory or such. Always troubleshoot. Customers appreciate it if you look at thier machines before you tell them they need to be replaced.
5. Ok, you're high school students. You will need to try harder and prove you have your stuff together. Dress neat, be well groomed, be polite, and act professional. First impression's count for a lot. If you give a bad first impression you probably will not get a chance to make any proposals.
Finally, the consultant is not supposed to be any particuler age, but should be a professional, who can help the customers bottom line.
OP: Mow lawns. No joke. (Score:5, Interesting)
Bought a used lawn mower, cleaned it up and sharpened the blade with a file. Estimated cost : 100 total.
Got an electric weed-eater for about $40 new w/ a 100' heavy duty extension cord.
Other crap : eye protection, ear protection, maybe a second mower and trimmer because there are two of you.
Total cost, roughly your entire $1000 budget.
Get started by printing out 1 page flyers to put on people's doors in neighborhoods (nice neighborhoods.) Each place you do will take you about 2 hours max with two people, and will pay $40, and needs to be done every two weeks. You can do like 4 each day tops, and if you do a GOOD job you will have awesome repeat business. Totally a cash business, so no taxes.
It takes some time to build up a client base, but once you two do a good job you will have more business than you can imagine. $800 free and clear every week on a full schedule, possibly more. That's $400 a week per person free and clear, $1600 a month.
It is hot, sweaty, dirty, demeaning work - which is why you will have so many people eager to have you do it for them. If you aren't too proud to sweat you will make more doing this than doing 'computer work' - esp. now.
Maybe you will find something that you can do with your $1000 start up fund, something that will net you $5,000 apiece in three months without access to a car
Re:CMFH - Code Monkeys For Hire (LLC) (Score:1, Interesting)
Repair amps (Score:3, Interesting)
Place an add in you're local music weekly, there's big demand for this. But just make sure that you make it clear that you're not liable for more than the cost of the repair, and don't promise that you can fix everything.
Also don't go cash up front, take a crack at it first, the best case scenario is that someone won't pay for the repair, you have the amp as collateral, worst case you can pawn it for more than you would have gotten anyway. You'll meet some interesting people, have some fun, and get a chance to chill out a bit before college.
Old amps are pretty easy to work on and there's a lot of poor musicians who can't afford to buy a new one, or have it professionally repaired, they're pretty willing to take a small risk to save a buck.
So my conclusion, forget about high tech, there's lot's of competition, find a niche and work it for all it's worth.
Re:Grow marijuana (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:CMFH - Code Monkeys For Hire (LLC) (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:OP: Mow lawns. No joke. (Score:2, Interesting)
If you live near a college campus (and you get that beater truck), you can buy and sell dorm fridges.
Print up flyers offering beer money ($10-20) for used units as Spring move out time comes. Cruise the alleys in the off-campus student housing area and pick up any you see left out for trash pickup. These can be for spare parts. Rent a garage for $50 a month if you need storage space. Clean them out and check and fix any that you can. Sell them in the Fall for $50-70 each (vs. $100+ new).
Re:I was involved in a "summer business" once... (Score:1, Interesting)
A sampling of summer jobs (Score:3, Interesting)
2. Landscaping. -1 redundant, 'nuf said.
3. Document prep: I used to do wordprocessing on my rare and ubermodern Atari. That morphed with time and tech into desktop publishing, a universally needed and generally badly done activity. Pros: Once you get some design principles down, not too hard to float above the scum. Cons: everyone thinks they're a designer, and only the good get paid well; as well, the client will always revise things at the last minute.
4. Databases for small business. It blows me away how many retail and service businesses use crappy data management. I did this in Filemaker because it's good at interfaces (incl. web-based) and flexible form queries (good for users, challenging for developing) as well as cross platform and cheap (at the time). Perfect for that segment, fast to develop in so good cash. Nowadays I'd do it in MySQL with a browser interface when possible, ymmv. Pros: only a few of these contracts needed over a summer, so you can market F2F, and it's a great ladder up to other IT as it often requires some basic networking too. Cons: clients can really take you for a ride through feature creep and not knowing what they really need.
5. Oh, I can't bring myself to admit to this one.
6. Tutoring. -2 Redundant.
7. Sell stuff over the 'net. Set up a website with shopping cart, go nuts marketing (short of spamdammit). Good way to do this is to find a distribution problem (eg. partner with some local craftspeople who're good but not getting their stuff out there). Or work ebay, work it hard, hit all the estate sales. Pros: flexibility, no F2F with nutty clients, decent $ opportunity. Cons: risk of a serious bomb.
8. Sell souvlaki on a nude beach. OK, you may not have the opportunity to do this, but hey! what a great entrepeneurial summer job that was. Mind you, I cashed a good portion of my profits on the all-too-available cold beer supplies at same beach. Pros: who cares if it doesn't go on your resume...
setting up open-source groupware (Score:4, Interesting)
I just got done installing dotproject open-source groupware for Opera Columbus. After some tough negotitation, I won the contract (no contract really, they just hired me). They already have hosting with another provider. The provider wanted X to developed web-based project management; I serisouly undercut them with an application suite that was already ready. I had to do some user training, but that's about it for the hard part.
What I recommend is taking very little of your $1000, buy some cheap web hosting, and setting up some open source groupware. Spend a little bit more of that $1000 on printing manuals or throwing together a nice presentation -- charts and graphs, with binders, etc. Physical things, such as paper, will show people that you have an investment in what you are doing, and aren't just talking. They will have it to refer to later when they can't remember what you said. It shows stability and lastingness, that you will be there.
Be selective with the open sources packages, find the stuff that's 1. finished, 2. polished, and 3. easy to use for a non-techie. I highly recommend dotproject [dotproject.net]; the only problem is that it lacks printing.
Then, setup free demo accounts for users. Give them 30 or 60 day trials. Expect to spend some time training. Offer to do the initial setup, such as user accounts, etc. The people who use it and like it will gladly pay for the setup.
You can charge either
1. recurring fees for stuff you host. If you chose this, be prepared to go the extra mile for support when the thing crashes in the middle of the night.
- or -
2. a larger, one-time setup fee for setting it up on their hosting providers. Be sure to specify rates for future support of the application if you do a 1x set up fee. Here is where you clean up when they need you.
Pick a minimum price you want, and always present something higher. That gives you room to negotiate. Geeks hate negotitaion, business people love it. Be prepared for it. Be prepared to walk away from deals where they want too much; those people are users and they will expect you to work for them 24/7 for way too little money. It's just not worth it.