College entrepreneur looking for something new. Plz read.

Hey fellas,

Great forum, just got done skimming through ALOT of posts and man do you guys know your stuff!

Anyways, right now I am studying Accounting and I.S. at a university, but I am in desperate need of a new job/money to pay for school. This past summer I started my own curb painting business, and I have learned so much from it, and don't know if I can give it up. I made a lot of money, more than I expected. BUT, it is very hard to find places to paint, with all the competition and rules that these cities have.

I am planning on starting it back up this month, but am looking for some good ideas on finding locations or contacting home owner associations to do some contract work for them because now I have some good experience (painted 1,000's of houses) great quality too.

I was just seeing if anyone has any good information they can share with me OR if you guys have any new ideas that a college student can do.

I can def. get a job, but I cannot find anything more than $8 an hour, and that is just a waste of my time right now.

I was maybe thinking of starting a valet business with college students, but I can't really afford that right now. Maybe next year...

If you guys can help me out that would be great. I know the potential I can make painitng curbs, but I would like to move on from it.

Thanks.

[Ankesh]

Thanks for asking.

* Search for Lawrence's posts on this forum. He did very well with curb painting and installing security peep holes. His approach often got 80-90% of an entire neighbourhood to buy his services.

* Have you tried out fliers? Should definitely get you 2-3% response rate. For every 100 fliers you deliver to homes, 2-3 of them should call you for your services.

* After those initial sales, you can try referral marketing. Asking the buyers to recommend you to 3 of their neighbours.

* Contacting home owner associations is a good idea. Also contacting the local fire department and getting some sort of an endorsement from them works very well.

Here's 3 college guys who started a biz last year offering a "Texting Coupon" service to local businesses.

http://www.collegetokens.com

Click on Fayetteville, Ark That's where they started. I see they also went to Univ of OKLA in Norman, OK and got a bunch of advertisers.

What they've done is set up a service where businesses offer a Discount Coupon and people (mostly college kids) can either go to the website and have the coupons sent to their cell phones.

However....if you will send me an email, I will send you info on a guy who started a similar "Coupon Texting" biz from scratch with hardly any start up expense.

Why is this biz the "coming wave"? Because this service can fill a restaurant with diners almost instantly....and bring in buyers to Shoe and Clothing Stores, buyers for almost anything.

It's a "Discount Coupon" business without need for
Graphics
Printing
Paper
Envelopes
Labels
or Postage

These are "electronic" coupons sent to cell phones and all the recipient has to do is SHOW the display on their cell when they purchase.

Here's another site where the operators got 58 businesses to participate and 11,000 subscribers. http://www.textbux.com

College Kids have money to spend and will go to the businesses where they get the best deals. Ex: A pizza shop sending a text coupon offering "$1 off a Slice of Pizza for Lunch" ....will bring in MANY college kids THAT DAY. ETC.

Again...send me an email ([email protected]) and I'll help you get this set up in your area....and....how to get local businesses pay $50 a week.

Don Alm

[GordonJ]

Know Groupon dot com?

www.groupon.com

Twist the idea (as Phil might say) and add Don Alm's in...and you may be onto something.

At Groupon, you can get a discount IF enough people BUY...if not, you don't get the discount and it costs nothing.

Imagine a college town pizza shop, where, perhaps on an "off" day, like Tuesday, you got them to give a HUGE discount, IF you were able to get enough students to buy that day? The revenue you could make would come from your efforts or your hosting or your texting...you would be the toll booth between the supply and demand.

I've been trying to get Groupon to set up shop in West Palm Beach, FL and we may get it soon.

SELLING ADVERTISING is never going away, and when you catch the early wave, you can ride it to tsunami like profits.

Twist and turn it like a Shaun White snowboarding exhibit.

Gordon

Gordon,

Good Find on Groupon...

Let's put a few more little Spins on the overall Concept!

Get your Brainstorming and Thinking Caps on...

Bet we'll be seeing Many more up and coming related ideas...

Best of Luck Negotiating and setting up shop in West Palm Beach, FL...

8Coupons, Yipit, Peanut Labs, Tippr, Scoop St, BuyWithMe, LivingSocial...
http://news.google.com/news/search?a...l=en&q=groupon
http://news.google.com/news/search?a...q=Group-Buying

http://www.8coupons.com/
http://yipit.com/
http://peanutlabs.com/
http://www.tippr.com/
http://www.scoopst.com/
http://www.buywithme.com/
http://livingsocial.com/
http://www.dealon.com/
http://springwise.com/retail/crowdsprout/

The Chinese term for group buying is Tuángòu...
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com...eamBuying.aspx

Phil

Yup....the BIG boys are in this one. However, from my years of experience there is ALWAYS ROOM for people who want to operate in "small towns".

For ex: Here's 2 guys who own a Book Store in a college town. They started up a Text coupon dealee last year and have 58 advertisers and over 11,000 subscribers (probably mostlu college kids)
http://www.textbux.com I don't think they're charging enough for their program though. Heck, this thing should be worth at least $50 a week to ANY business. Just MO.

Now....here's 2 operations that offer "SMS Text Service".

http://www.textmarks.com
and
http://www.adking.com

The last one is by "Brandel" who've been in the Biz-Op thingee for years. They run full page ads in the Opportunity Mags and get many people paying their monthly fees. Could be a good place to start.

I've found 2 sms services that are free, as of now.

Thus....if you could get this going in a college town, you could practically name your own price. Just 1,000 college kids as subscribers could command a BIG weekly or monthly fee.

Get on this one quick. Consumers are looking for the best deals and biz owners are looking for customers.

Don Alm

Hey Don Alm, I sent you an email, if you could maybe help me get the ball rolling on this. Im very interested in this, and think this could work out for me in my city.

Also, with the curb painting, im going to start filling out business permits and such again to get this started as well. I think I can do pretty well with this one.

Thank you for all the responses! I appreciate the help! Anyways, a few questions:

How much is a good price to charge a week for this service. $50 seems a bit steep for a new business, especially one run by college kids.

How do I go about getting phone numbers from students (subscription)? Maybe set a booth up on campus? Flyers? Signs? I think a website is simply not enough. I guess anything would really work.

I really think I could get a good business in my city if I really plan and go about this the right way the first time, to get some credibility.

Also, how do those text messaging services work? Are they simple to work with?

Thanks for the help guys.


I have a few ideas on our business name and website address.

^Kudos for you to have the courage to be an entrepreneur at a very young age.

What's a college kids favorite food? Stew? Carrots & Peas? Naw! It's....

P I Z Z A !

You provide free Ad Sheets (that are taped onto pizza boxes) to local Pizza Delivery biz.

You then sell Ad Space to local biz owners wanting to reach college kids.

You could even expand beyond campus to "regular" folks.

I used to get 6c to 8c per ad depending on the size for 5,000 sheets. 12 ads per sheet.

You'll have to find a printer and graphics person to do the ads but, shouldn't be hard finding these.

Here's one I found http://www.pizzaboxtopads.com You don't have to do Full Color either.

Advertisers would LOVE to be on Pizza Boxes.

Sure beats painting curbs.

Don Alm