How I Started Making $5k/month as a 20-year-old College Student
Often-times we might hear a story about how someone makes it big off of a something small. If you’re anything like me, you strive to reach your fullest potential. But also, if you’re anything like me, you get frustrated when people take years to elaborate of their “making it” story.
That’s not what I’m going to do.
If you are even a little bit interested in starting your own business or even a side hustle as a young college student, but have absolutely no idea where to begin, this article is for you.
No business background? No problem.
Let me start by giving some preface, I had absolutely no background in business prior to starting this side hustle. I started college not really knowing what I wanted to do. I declared as a graphic design major, switched around about twenty times to web development, web analyst, other programming majors, then lastly to architecture. The summer following my switch to architecture I asked myself, “you know what, what’s going to really make me happy?”
I’m a college football player, and long story short, I had several adverse things happen to me that summer. First, I had an injury and was required to sit from nearly all activities. As a result, I was forced to quit my active summer job of landscaping and lawn care. I didn’t know what I would do with all my new free time.
The thought had crossed my mind several times, “I want to start a business.” But I knew absolutely nothing about business. And if you’re in that same position right now, THAT’S OKAY!
My dad, without knowing that I had been thinking about business, jokingly said to me one night, “why don’t you start a gutter cleaning business? It’ll give you something to do!”
I took it to heart. And not knowing anything about business I began my research on what all I would need to do to be classified as a legal business. I’ll leave that part out for the purposes of this article. If there is interest, I can definitely touch on that whole process in another article.
Nevertheless, I presented my dad with my plan. Gutter cleaning didn’t seem like it would be a viable enough business plan, so I added window cleaning as the main summer service, and gutter cleaning as the fall and spring service. I showed my dad the logos I was thinking of creating, the business name, and some taglines to start marketing it.
He was impressed.
Build your customer-base.
As cliché as it sounds to say, the next thing I know, I was hanging up door hangers and passing around flyers. I had to find a way to build up my customer-base.
I would recommend to anyone looking to start, scale slowly. Especially when you aren’t fully sure of what you’re doing. Start building the word-of-mouth relationships early! Marketing is a term that gets thrown around a lot around this subject. You don’t have to conquer the ins and outs of marketing to be able to start your side hustle. Like I said, I started this as a 20-year-old college student with absolutely no background in business.
I started to get more and more calls, I continued to quote jobs and get them scheduled. I got to a point where I knew I had clientele that I would be able to afford purchasing the things needed to service their windows and gutters. I’m not going to lie, I started cheap. I bought the cheapest squeegees I could find, I was using my dad’s ladders. I found some old buckets in my garage, cleaned them out really good, and used those to carry the water. My window cleaning solution was nothing special — it was Dawn’s Dish Soap and water. You really don’t have to over-complicate everything. But make sure you practice whatever your service is before your first job! I practiced several times on my own home before I ever went out and tried it on a real job.
A look back on my first job.
My very first job was a homeowner and his wedding barn venue. In hindsight, the job should’ve taken me about 1–2 hours total, but I spent over 6 hours that day trying to relearn and master the technique of window cleaning. I kept repeating to myself the entire time, “this is my first job. This is going to be the highest quality service I can offer to this man. He deserves to receive the highest standard that I want my company to engulf. This is setting the tone for my business.”
Those 6 hours were the most important six hours I have ever spent on a job. That was the kickstart to my business. I soon found out, during my first year, that I would be able to generate revenues between $1k-$6k/month. This shocked me more than ever because I didn’t think money like that would be possible without working a full-time job. Granted, I spent probably 5–30 hours a week on this gig, but it paid dividends!
As you continue to build your clientele, complete jobs, and receive payments, you’ll want to start upgrading your equipment. The first thing I did, tossed my cheap squeegee blades for something much nicer. This was the wisest thing I could’ve done. The average job time was cut nearly in half. I didn’t have to constantly go over windows multiple times because of a streak I would leave behind, instead, the windows started to be clean on my first pull.
Upgrade your equipment when you start to make some cash. Keep investing in your business!
Business is easy.
Keep it simple. You are providing a service or product to a customer.
In today’s society, people make everything way more complicated than it needs to be. Yes, there is more to business than just providing a service or a product to a customer. But business is not business if you are unable to make those transactions. Don’t get caught up in the “complicate everything” game because it will just drain you out when you don’t need to be drained.
If anyone tries to scare you from starting your own business, it’s either because they don’t have the level of curiosity and interest to learn the ins and outs of it, or they think they know so much to the level that they feel there is too much you need to do and learn that you don’t know anything about. Don’t worry so much about all the terminology some business people will tell you. You’re here to create a side hustle. Potentially, as you continue to grow, you can turn it into much more than a side hustle. Your own full-time business. And lastly, as you continue to build your product or service, you will continue to learn more and more about business. It’s about giving it time.
If you don’t know where to start. To any high school or college students out there, I’d offer this advice: just start. As intimidating as the process may seem, it isn’t bad at all. Make a checklist of what you must do, and spend a little bit of time each day checking something off. If you don’t know what service you want to offer, consider starting with something like window cleaning, gutter cleaning, or lawn care!
Take the risk while you’re young. You won’t regret it.
And even if things go south, there will always be pizza in the trunk.
