15 Business Ideas for Part-time Students in Nigeria
As a part-time student in Nigeria, you have lectures in the evenings or at weekends. Your lecture schedule gives you time to try your hands at a business if you do not have a full-time job.
With your part-time business, you can pay your school fees and settle other incessant bills.
In this article, we will share with you 15 business ideas you can start as a part-time student in Nigeria.
Why you Should Start a Business as a Part-time Student
There are many reasons for starting a business but as a student, there are reasons specific to your situation.
Below are a few reasons why you should consider starting a business as a part-time student in Nigeria.
Few jobs in the country
Nairametrics estimates that 33.3% which represents over 23 million Nigerians between the ages of 15-64 are unemployed. There is a high rate of unemployment in the country irrespective of if you are a graduate or not.
This situation is not unique to Nigeria alone.
In 2021, Microtrends reported that the United States had an unemployment rate of 5.46% and 8.05%..
Starting a part-time business as a student ensures that you are self-employed, plus the extra perks that come with owning a business.
Financial independence
Part-time programmes were designed for people who are working. Unfortunately in Nigeria, a lot of students who are not employed enrol for part-time programmes after trying to secure a full-time admission for several years without luck.
In Nigeria, a lot of parents limit the financial assistance they give to their kids when they reach a certain age. The age limit is usually between 19-21 years. Most part-time students fall within this age bracket.
As a part-time student, if you have parents who pay all your bills, then you are lucky. If not, you need to roll up your sleeves and get to work.
Having a business as a part-time student helps you to be financially independent whilst you are still studying.
Career Development
Whatever career path you choose, starting a business can help shape future career prospects.
As a part-time student business owner, it’s most likely that you will handle various aspects of your business alone when you are just starting out.
As you run your business, you will gain real-life experience in entrepreneurship, managerial skills, project management skills
The kind of experience you will get on the job depends on your kind of business.
For example, someone that’s into a delivery business will have an experience in transportation and logistics.
In the future, if you decide to quit your business, you can easily apply to work at companies looking for the vast experience you have.
Learning opportunities
Being a sole entrepreneur comes with many responsibilities. As you run your business, you’ll discover that there are many things you need to learn and implement.
For most of these things, you will need to read articles and watch videos. You may also need to pay for courses.
As you learn and implement this newfound knowledge in your business, you become so good at them.
Perhaps if you quit your business and start a new one, you can easily scale the new business with the knowledge you have acquired.
These skills can also be added to your CV or LinkedIn profile for other career opportunities.
Potential for long-term revenue
A small business that you started while studying in school may become a profitable business that you might want to continue after schooling.
Your business might become so big that you won’t be able to handle it alone. It could grow from a small business to a multinational business.
You could pass the whole business or a portion of it through shares to your kids if you set up the right structures.
15 Business Ideas for Part-time Students in Nigeria
With no ranking order, you can pick from our list of best business ideas for part-time students who are studying in Nigeria.
1. Start a YouTube Channel
If you are already on platforms like Tiktok and Instagram, starting a YouTube channel wouldn’t be a complicated business.
Unlike other social media channels, Google pays content creators to post videos on YouTube.
You have definitely come across adverts while watching videos on YouTube. Business owners pay Google to place these adverts on user-generated content.
The owner of the YouTube channel gets about 68% of how much the business is willing to pay per view while Google keeps the rest.
Here’s an example of how this works;
If Infinix, a popular mobile phone brand in Nigeria wants to advertise a new phone model, they could decide to pay ₦20 for each view they get on their video advertisement.
When Infinix sets up this campaign, the advert will begin to show up on various YouTube channels.
For every single view, the channel owner may get up to 68% of ₦20; which is ₦13.6.
If that advert is shown 10,000 times on the same channel, the channel owner gets ₦136,000.
Mind you, a single YouTube video can have more than 5 ads.
In some niches and countries, some advertisers pay as high as ₦10,000 when someone clicks on their advert while watching a video.
To be eligible for the YouTube monetisation programme, your YouTube channel must have at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 minutes of watch time in a given year.
If you want to be successful in this business, you must create videos that give value to consumers.
Below are examples of YouTube channels you can start;
- A tech channel where you teach people how to do stuff with their phones or computers.
- A channel where you teach men or women how to dress properly for different occasions.
- You can create a channel that teaches people how to dance.
- A travel and destination vlog that shows beautiful places people could visit during holidays or to relax.
- A channel that teaches shy guys how to approach a lady and maintain a healthy relationship.
- A channel that teaches people how to cook different delicacies.
- A car review channel.
- If you can sing, you can start a YouTube channel of you singing or remixing popular songs. You could also do a sing-off challenge on your channel like the video below.
Side note: YouTubers with a huge number of active subscribers also make money by selling their courses, membership programmes, affiliate commissions or video sponsorships from different brands.
2. Tutoring
If you are good with certain subjects, you can become a tutor or a tutorial master as it is popularly known in Nigeria at your higher institution.
There are subjects that most of your colleagues in class or other departments have difficulties with. You can teach these subjects to them and charge a fee.
For instance, you can tutor part-time students in your school twice in a week for subjects you are good at and charge ₦5,000 monthly for each student.
If you have 20 students paying ₦5,000 monthly, that’s a ₦100,000 profit per month.
You can decide to charge more or hire other students who are good with other subjects to increase your profits.
In this business, you can also sell study materials or past questions to students in the school – especially to new students.
Why new students?
When students newly gain admission into a tertiary institution, they are ambitious and have a strong desire to study.
If you have been gathering the previous exam questions for the subjects you teach, you can compile them and sell the photocopies as study materials to new students.
Find out if this is legal in your school before you proceed with this business idea.
3. Home or Online Lesson Teacher
If you love teaching but find it difficult to teach any course that you offer at your high institution, you can consider teaching secondary or primary school students.
Most parents know that their kids may struggle at college without a quality primary and secondary school education. So they hire private home tutors who can teach their kids subjects they are struggling with.
In this business model, you can charge any amount you want per hour. There are private lesson teachers who charge up to ₦4,000 per hour.
As a private lesson or online tutor, you are not limited to primary or secondary school subjects alone; you could also teach programming, graphic design, foreign languages etc.
To get started with this business, you can register on Superprof.ng or prepclass.com.ng.
4. Content Writing
There are a lot of blogs and business owners that need the service of content writers.
As a content writer, your job is to write original SEO content on different topics. You can choose to write on specific niches like tech, real estate, career, relationship, business etc.
If you are good at writing, you should consider this business.
In Nigeria, writers are paid between ₦1 to ₦3 per word. However, you can charge more if you are really good at what you do.
You can also take your writing skills to foreign markets where you get paid more.
To get started in this business;
- choose a niche you will be writing about. It is easier to focus on a few niches than to write about all niches you are given.
- Read articles on how to write SEO content.
- Create a Medium account and practice your craft there.
- Reach out to blogs and business owners who need your service.
- Create a Fiverr or Upwork account to get writing gigs from foreign clients.
5. Social Media Marketing Agency (SMMA)
A social media marketing agency is in charge of curating content on the social media pages of businesses and large organizations.
As a social media agency, you need to understand the algorithm of various social media channels and the kinds of content that suit each platform. You need to know the best time to post on each platform and how to make content go viral.
Social media marketing agencies can help various businesses manage their social media pages.
You are not limited to working with one company.
In this business, you will;
- Create content calendars.
- Create social media content.
- Post content on various channels.
- Respond to comments.
- Give reports on how the organization’s social media strategy is performing.
You can start this business by first building your personal social media accounts. When you have proof that you are good at managing social media pages, you can reach out to businesses that can pay you for your service.
A social media marketing agency is not limited to its location; you can work for companies in your country or foreign countries.
6. Date Entry and Bookkeeping
Data entry and Bookkeeping are two distinctive jobs.
Data entry involves entering or converting data from traditional means into a computer while Bookkeeping is the act of keeping financial records of a business.
As a data entry specialist, you will be in charge of taking stock of the items a business is selling. If the business already takes stocks by itself on a book, your job will be to transfer those stocks into a Google spreadsheet.
While as a bookkeeper, your job is to record the daily transactions of the business in a spreadsheet or accounting software.
Without a service like this, most businesses won’t be able to calculate their profits and know how much to pay as taxes.
You can start a data entry and Bookkeeping agency for businesses in your city or state. You need to learn this skill before you get started.
Luckily, you can learn it online within one month. Check out this Data Entry and Bookkeeping course by Accountinghub.
7. Graphics Design
Businesses of all sizes always require the services of Graphic designers.
Graphics designers are needed to create business logos, social media graphics, advertisement graphics, YouTube thumbnails, flyers and so many more.
There are so many graphic designers out there but few are really good at the skill. To be successful in this business, you have to perfect your graphic design skill.
You won’t achieve much if you are a mediocre graphic designer.
To get started with this business, you have to learn the skill, create some designs and upload them on websites like Behance or Dribble. This will serve as your graphic design portfolio.
When you reach out to businesses that need a graphic designer, you should always attach a link to your online Graphic design portfolio.
Check out this community of Nigerian Graphic designers on Facebook.
8. Professional Photographer
The most common type of professional photographers in Nigeria is the kinds you see at occasions like weddings and the type that do photoshoots at the studio or open places.
There are many aspects of professional photography that you can explore.
Here are some ideas;
- E-commerce or product photography.
- Stock photography.
- Aerial photography.
- Real Estate Photography.
- Fashion Photography.
The best part of being a professional photographer is that you are not limited to one aspect of it. You can combine other types of photography niches to make more money.
To be successful in this business, you need to have a social media presence on platforms like Instagram and a website where you can showcase your skill. You may also need to run advert campaigns to reach new clients.
9. Video Editor
Video content is in high demand these days. With the advent of video-centric social media channels like YouTube, Tiktok and Instagram reels, businesses and individuals are uploading more videos than ever.
As a Video editor, your job is to edit raw videos shot with a camera or smartphone.
You will add special effects and other elements to better visualize what the presenter is trying to portray.
Just like other skills we’ve mentioned in this post, you need to be good at video editing to get jobs from clients who are interested in your service.
To excel in this business, you need to first learn the skill, practice it and post videos you edited while practising on platforms like YouTube. This will serve as your portfolio.
When you begin to get jobs from clients, you can post finished jobs on your YouTube portfolio with permission from the client.
While searching for clients who need your service, always include a link to your YouTube portfolio.
Your first clients are but are not limited to;
- People who own YouTube channels with large audiences.
- Real Estate agents.
- Car dealers.
- Businesses that need a video for advertising.
- Religious organizations.
- Event planners.
- Movie producers.
You could also hire a videographer to work with you. A Videographer is someone who uses a camera to film events, make movies etc.
10. Web Design and Maintenance
In this era, every business needs a website. There are lots of businesses without websites in Nigeria or around the world, you can capitalize on this.
Most business owners think that a website will cost them so much money to design and maintain. Some also do not know how a website can be useful to them.
You need to first understand how a website can be beneficial for different kinds of businesses and how to set up affordable websites without spending much time.
After learning these two things, the next step is to;
- Create your own website. You don’t want to be a website designer without a website.
- Create sample websites for different kinds of businesses. For example, you can create a sample website for a lawyer, real estate agent, car seller, restaurant, an e-commerce website for people who sell online etc. You don’t have to buy different domains to do this, you can easily set up a subdomain for each website type.
- Reach out to potential customers via email or social media. Explain to them why they need a website, then send them your samples.
- You also need to run adverts on social media to reach out to more business owners who may need a website.
The maintenance part of this business has the potential to make you more money. You can offer maintenance services to your clients after creating the website for them.
The following services fall under website maintenance;
- Yearly renewal of domain and hosting.
- Uploading of products for e-commerce websites.
- Periodic website backup.
- Website security.
- Create additional pages.
- Add additional features to the website.
- And many more
11. Digital Advertising Agency
A digital advertising agency helps businesses to market their business through paid advertisements on social media, search engines or any website at all.
Digital advertising is a part of digital marketing.
A lot of business owners in Nigeria do not know how powerful online advertisements can be. They still patronize only traditional forms of marketing.
As a digital advertising agency, you will help business owners to advertise their businesses on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google, Instagram, Tiktok and other popular websites.
You need to learn how to advertise on each of these platforms.
You can learn how to advertise on only Facebook for a start, then as your business grows, you learn how to advertise on other platforms.
You can charge your clients a one-time fee or a percentage of how much they spend on ads.
For example, you could charge clients who are spending ₦500,000 and above 20% of what they spend on ads and charge clients who spend below that a one-time fee.
Check this article for different pricing models.
12. Laundry Business
If you live in a busy city then this might be the best business for you.
A lot of employees and professionals are always busy during the week. They need their clothes clean and they may want to relax or focus on other activities during the weekend.
As a laundryman, your job is to wash customers’ clothes with the right kinds of soap, and dry and iron the clothes.
You need to have an experience in this business before you commence. If you are not already experienced in it, you can work or intern for a laundry business in your city for 3-6 months or more to learn how the business works.
This business does not require much capital as you can wash and dry the clothes manually before investing in a washing machine and dryer.
13. Cab Driver
An average cab driver earns about ₦50,000 to ₦100,000 in a week (excluding expenses). If you can drive, you should consider this business.
You can get a car for hire purchase, drive and remit money weekly or monthly to the owner of the car.
Recently, some cab operators in Nigeria introduced a finance scheme where drivers without a car can pay a certain amount upfront. After payments, you get the car and pay back a fixed amount weekly.
The popular cab services in Nigeria are Uber, Taxify, LagRide and Indrive.
You can read this article on how to become a driver at LagRide.
If you can’t afford the price of a car, you can go for a tricycle (Keke).
Most students in Nigeria wouldn’t want to ride a tricycle because they see it as a business for the uneducated.
A tricycle rider in busy towns earns up to ₦5,000 daily excluding expenses on fuel and daily taxes. If they earn this amount continuously for 30 days, that’s ₦150,000 monthly. This is more than how much a lot of people earn monthly from their jobs in Nigeria.
If you are willing to start this business, you can go to a tricycle park in your city and tell one of the riders that you need a tricycle for hire-purchase. They could connect you with people who need riders for their tricycles.
14: Delivery Business
As much as more people are beginning to sell items online, the delivery business in Nigeria will keep booming.
In Lagos State alone, there are over 10,000 businesses selling their products online.
Although there are a handful of delivery companies in Nigeria, new entries can have a chunk of the pie.
This business is not only profitable in Lagos state, you can do it if you live in other parts of Nigeria.
As a delivery business, you’ll help other businesses deliver products bought by their customers.
It will be an advantage for you if you can start this business with funds to invest in motorcycles. However, if you don’t have funds at the moment, you can start with delivering items by foot.
Some established delivery companies in Nigeria still deliver items by foot. A good example is NIPOST.
The Nigerian postal service has a delivery depot in different local governments across the country. Sometimes they deliver items by foot if the delivery location is close to the depot.
For a start, you can choose to deliver items in towns/cities close to where you live. This will save you the cost of taking public transport to far distances to deliver items.
Most delivery businesses in Nigeria charge around ₦1,000 or ₦1,500 per delivery.
After doing the business for a while, you should be able to save up some money and purchase a motorcycle for delivery.
If you have friends or relatives that can invest in your delivery business, you can reach out to them for funds and give them a share in the business.
15. Become a Real Estate Agent
Real Estate agents link people looking to buy or rent a property to property owners.
This business is lucrative if you are a real estate agent in areas with a high influx of people looking to rent or buy a property.
Real Estate agents earn commissions when they complete a sale. The commissions vary between 5-10% of the price of the property or the annual rent of the property.
In this context, there are two types of real estate agents;
There are agents who deal majorly with low-priced rental properties and there are agents who deal with selling or renting expensive properties and lands.
You can start out by linking people looking for houses to rent with available properties in your neighbourhood.
If you are confident enough, you can venture into selling and renting out expensive properties.
To get started with renting out low-priced rental properties, you can reach out to landlords in your neighbourhood; convince them that you have a list of people who are looking for houses to rent.
Tell them to inform you when there’s a vacant room in their building. You can also tell them to link you up with other landlords.
Another way to connect with landlords in your neighbourhood is to attend the Landlord’s meeting in your street.
When a property is available for rent, you can make a video of the property and post it on social media platforms or forums like Nairaland.
If you want to venture into selling lands and expensive houses, the easiest way to get started is to join a Real Estate brokerage firm.
In the real estate industry, a brokerage firm is a company with so many real estate agents working with them.
When property owners or developers have few properties to sell (usually more than one), they go to a brokerage firm to list the property.
The brokerage firm in turn shares the property amongst its group of Real Estate agents who will market the property.
Any agent who brings a buyer earns a commission.
If you are interested in selling Real Estate properties, click here to join a team.
The best part of being a Real Estate Agent is the fact that you can do it together with other businesses on this list.
Final thoughts
This is a list of businesses you can do as a part-time student studying in Nigeria.
There are more businesses that were not added here. Each environment has problems that people are willing to pay money to solve. You can brainstorm about these problems and come up with a solution.
Who knows, you could be the next celebrity entrepreneur from your town.
Do not forget to share this article with your loved ones.
