6 Online Businesses for Students in Nigeria That Don’t Require a Lot of Capital

Have you ever needed money but had none, or have you been looking for a legit online business to earn extra income for clothes, courses, certification fees, or even get your crush something nice for their birthday? Are all the ideas you have unsuitable for your schooling schedule or require huge capital? 

In this article, you will learn about 6 legit online businesses you can start today as an undergraduate in Nigeria without getting distracted from your studies. 

How Can a Student Make Money Online in Nigeria?

Here are 5 legit online businesses you can start today as a student in Nigeria.

1. Online Tutoring 

In the university, there are often three types of students; the ones that can easily assimilate what is taught in class, the ones who can read and understand when they read alone, and those who don’t care. 

The set of students that don’t understand anything in class but don’t want to cheat or like to learn these subjects are your customers. If you position your online tutoring business well, you can get as many as 5 to 10 private students as your customers. If you charge ₦10,000 per student in a semester or monthly, you can earn up to ₦100,000.

I know you are thinking, ‘But I am not a first-class student; I am not even a straight-A student; why should anybody listen to me?’.

Well, your question is valid, but you don’t have to be a first-class student; you don’t even need to have a straight-A every semester.

I wasn’t a straight-A student; I also didn’t graduate with a first-class or a 2.1, but I still made thousands of naira doing this. 

All you need is the ability to read and understand a topic, and then relate that knowledge to people in the simplest way possible. You will also need a Video editing & compressing tool, and a video conferencing platform or a cloud store for your videos.

2. Mini Importation 

This is one business that has made many undergraduates millions. Although it’s very popular, the market isn’t saturated.

Mini importation is a business where a vendor orders goods from another country, mostly China, at a way lower price and sells at a higher price in Nigeria. 

From my experience, most mini-importation businesses revolve around fashion, but there are other areas you can explore. Some suggestions include tech gadgets, skincare products, Wigs, and Household Items.

To start, you need to pick a niche and then find a hot-selling product; it should be something with high demand but low supply. 

You will then proceed to look for a website where you will get your products. Some popular websites include 1688.com, AliExpress, Alibaba, etc. 

Next, you will need to source trusted agents that will handle procurement and shipping for you.

There are a few ways to start selling, but the cheapest is the PREORDER method, where you put the products up on preorder and use the customer’s money to order.

It’s a fun way to make cool money, but like all other methods, you need patience.

3. Research Writing

Your job as a research writer is to prepare a final-year project or seminar report for students and get paid. It’s a straightforward process, but it requires more concentration. 

Most students don’t understand what this whole final year project thing is, others shut down at the thought of writing, and that’s where you come in. Their knight in shining armour.

Firstly, decide who you will serve and the service you can offer them. For example, I prepared seminars and project reports for students, but since I was in computer science, I decided to focus on computer science-based projects. This way, I was still within my course of study, which gave me an edge. You should do the same, stick to your department or your faculty.

Next, create your adverts and post them to your faculty and department WhatsApp groups. This is after you must have decided on the shape your offer will take.

You can charge ₦30,000 per project report for a non-technical department.

Assuming you have 4 clients, 4 x 30,000 = ₦120,00.

You will need an anti-plagiarism tool, and your writing skill, or learn the skill while on the job. Some departments will require that you are proficient in either Microsoft Excel or SPSS for data analysis.

4. Flipping Social

 

If you are always on social media, scrolling through pages, you can convert that time into money. Flipping social media pages is a lucrative online business for students to earn up to ₦200,000 monthly. So, how does it work? 

All you have to do is create a social media account on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Pinterest or Facebook. I am familiar with TikTok and Instagram and will advise you to start with TikTok because it currently has a faster growth curve. 

You can set up a celebrity fan page, parody account, pet account, or food account. 

The secret is to find something that gets people’s attention in a specific area, and then make your page a hub for that content. 

When you create the page, you can use curated content from other creators to grow it, but always give credit to the original owners to avoid copyright issues. 

When you have grown the page to a certain follower count, you can sell it to an interested party, mostly business owners. 

You can flip a 40k followers TikTok page for between ₦40k – ₦60k, depending on the type of account and value of the page. 

5. Content creation

If you love writing, taking nature photos, acting out movie scenes, or speaking to a crowd, you can turn that passion into content and earn. All you have to do is identify the skill you want to focus on, then decide on the type of content you will create and the topic it will focus on. 

For example, you can create videos for skin care products and build a brand as a skincare influencer. You will need a good smartphone and other tools like editing software. When everything is ready, you can start creating for yourself and sharing with an audience. 

Over time, you will build a portfolio, and then start reaching out to brands to ask for deals, collaboration, etc. You can also offer to be a UGC – User Generated Content – creator for a brand, where you’ll simply record yourself using their products or services. 

Many brands are looking for young, vibrant, and creative content creators to create content for their products and services. Hence, you can also sell your skill on freelance websites like Fiverr or Upwork and earn in dollars.

As an entry-level content creator, you can charge ₦10,000 or ₦50,000 for a 30 seconds video, depending on the project’s complexity. 

1. Food Vending Rider

If you are somewhat efficient with bicycle riding, you could join food delivery networks such as Glovo, BoltFood, and Jumia Food, among others. When you join these networks, you would be assigned food orders within your area for pickup, and get paid for successful delivery. Additionally, you could directly reach out to food vendors located near you who are involved in online food delivery and offer your services as a delivery person. Although this work may seem exerting, the advantage is that you can determine your availability for order pickups. This means you can choose to open these food vendor’s rider apps only during your free time or whenever you feel like it. It’s like making money in your spare time.

How to Balance Online Business Needs with Studies

Maintaining a school and business life balance can be challenging, Here are some tips to navigate the rough days.

• Create a plan for school and business
• Create a daily routine that revolves around your new lifestyle
• Identify your high-priority activities and eliminate low priority 
• Take time to rest and reward yourself. Life is easy if we make the right decisions.

Final Thoughts

There are many options you can start with, most of them have strict requirements and others don’t. If you are patient and pick any legit business from the list above, you can achieve independence before you graduate. Learning how to create a plan for studies, prioritising and rewarding yourself will help make the process easier without messing up your grades.