What are 3 of my business ideas?

Local Web Development for Small Businesses

As a college student with no luck scoring an internship, I've been really stressed out about how I'm going to show prospective employers I have the experience necessary to work successfully for their organization. Not only that, but I would like to have some way to make money on the side as well as gain valuable industry experience to use when going out into the job market.

An idea I had would be to start doing web development for local businesses in my area. Being a college student, the bar is set pretty low for me anyways in terms of what I can produce. With that in mind, my plan would be to go to various small businesses in my home town after identifying areas of their websites that need improvement and come to an agreement for updating it or adding specific features to make the site cleaner or easier to use.

Coming back to the fact that I'm a college student, I wouldn't have enough time to do larger scale projects like rebuilding entire websites but small things like setting up a basic news letter to be sent out to registered customers about upcoming sales or creating an ordering system for products (not to purchase, but simply create orders for items) would be simple enough that I could do it in my spare time.

Because these would be small projects created by a college student in their spare time, it would be low cost and low risk. If it doesn't work the way they expected it to do, they've lost a tenth of what they would have paid otherwise.


Vehicle-to-Vehicle Alerts

Let me set the scene for you.

You're driving on the highway. There's only one lane and the car in front of you has had their left blinker on for the last 10 minutes. What do you do? Flash your lights? Honk? Pray they finally look down at their dashboard and end this torment? Wouldn't it be so much easier if you could just press a button and send them an alert telling them their blinker is on?

Introducing CarTalk! I've been thinking about this product for a while. Stemming from a deep loathing for drivers who go 5-under every damn time, this would be a system used with your Personal Assistants such as Alexa, Siri, and Cortona. CarTalk would work by sending a message to the car via Bluetooth and the receiving driver will be told that an alert was sent to them. If they choose to accept, the message will be played to them.

The best way to do this would be to first integrate it with the newer smart cars. By going to the manufacturers of the vehicles and implementing into the cars themselves, it would make it more accessible to the consumers, rather than using an app.


High School Odd Jobs

Besides working as a Grader for the Data Structures course at UWT, I've had an ongoing side job as a dog sitter for various families across the Hood Canal. I started doing it in high school for my aunt and uncle, and through word-of-mouth I've gotten around ten different clients that I've worked for. Now that I'm coming to the end of my time in Washington, those same families are going to need someone to take over for me. However, It can be hard to find a reliable individual that you pay to live in your house and care for your animals.

The business idea is to create a website that keeps a catalog of registered high school students who are willing to take care of your place while you're away. Considering that this type of work is usually in line with what a high school student is capable of doing, this would be an excellent way to give exposure to up-and-coming entrepreneurs looking to expand their personal brand through clients that aren't family.

When clicking on an available student, you'll be able to see a description of their experience, reviews of their work, and any other tidbits they decide to include about themselves. After choosing your student, you would simply set a meeting with the individual to learn more about them in person. If they're what you're looking for then you can set the time frame in which you'll be gone, along with how much the payment is, and any special instructions the student might need to know before looking after your home and furry loved ones.