For some college students, a job is only a temporary means to an end, a way to pay the bills. For others, it’s the beginning of a business they’ll potentially work in for the rest of their life.
In August 2023, Victor Paiva, a junior majoring in business, found inspiration on the internet after getting tired of working in retail.
“I’ve always known that I wanted to start my own business,” Paiva said. “But I didn’t really plan on starting something so soon.”
Paiva started small, asking family and friends if he could clean their windows. Soon, he started to make a name for himself and his business, Window Glow Cleaning.
When Window Glow officially launched in August 2023, Paiva’s goal was to make $20,000 by the start of the new year. He knocked on doors, ran ads, and consistently updated his website and his social media, and by Dec. 31, Window Glow had made $27,000 in revenue.
“Next year I want to break $200,000,” Paiva said. “I have a plan on growing my business. I really want to expand to multiple colleges and have this business be a continual thing for college students.”
Paiva said that he had to go through all the hard parts of making a business, like competing with other retailers and learning how to interact with customers. Now, he wants to share both the wealth and the knowledge.
“Once I’m done with school I want to pass it on to managers. I want managers to be able to run their own sales teams and have their own crews of window cleaners,” Paiva said.
Both on- and off-campus jobs are big-time commitments and often don’t give students control over their work schedules. Running a side hustle can be a larger or smaller time commitment, but it allows students to make their work schedule. Side hustles provide freedom and income to UA students who are under time constraints. Even for someone who budgets down to the penny, life is unexpected.
Trinity Drake, a sophomore majoring in business, started her company, CEO Creations, in her second year of high school. Similar to Paiva, Drake found the idea for her company online.
“Me and my cousin used to see candied grapes all over the internet, so one day we made some and tried to sell them,” Drake said.
Drake used the profits she made to buy ingredients and expand the flavors and foods that she offered. She started making spicy bowls, which are cold salads with pickled vegetables, eggs and sausage, all covered in a secret spicy sauce. During her senior year of high school, Drake profited about $5,000 through selling spicy bowls and candied grapes.
“You’re not going to find anybody that can give you the taste that I can give you and the quality that I can give you,” Drake said.
Connor Nielsen, a freshman majoring in electrical engineering, did not go into college with the intention of starting a side hustle, but he found an opportunity waiting for him on social media.
“When I first started, I didn’t think it would be much of a business. But then I was scrolling on Instagram, and I saw this guy, he was making $10,000 a month just making videos for car dealerships,” Nielsen said.
Nielsen did not have a lot of experience photographing cars, so he looked for places to learn. That’s when he found MOB, INC, otherwise known as Motorists of Birmingham in Nice Cars. MOB, INC gave Nielsen a space to learn how to photograph cars, and the organization also reposted his photos on its Instagram page.
As he continued to develop his craft, he came up with a name for his business: Triple Lens Photography.
Nielsen is still looking to grow Triple Lens Photography, but he said that for right now, photographing cars isn’t about the money, but rather about the art.
By the end of this year, he hopes to be making a few hundred dollars a month, enough to provide everything he needs outside of school. Long-term, Nielsen doesn’t plan to stop photography.
“One day it would be so cool to just run my own business and be making a living off of it,” Nielsen said.
All three students have at least one thing in common: They’re ready and willing to put in time and use what they’ve learned to create successful side hustles.
“If you’re always willing to learn from everybody and meet people, that will help you in life 1000 percent,” Paiva said.
