Together with Alexander Nenov, we came up with the idea of creating a useful guide for people who want to get into online business but do not know much about the digital side of the subject.
The idea was very good because I also get questions like this every day - "How do I get started?", "Is it easy?", "What will it cost me to get started?", "Where should I start?", "Will I do it right?"…. And these questions are perfectly valid because they are asked by people who have experience in a certain area (business field) and have a small - in terms of a successful online presence!
We very quickly joined hands, because we both wanted to create something useful and practical, with our contribution being real advice and guidance in hosting, domains, cloud, etc.
Considering that we at Hosting Jump have been in this business for 13 years, we can pass on many good practices and tips - for a successful start for any enthusiast!
On the occasion of our 13th birthday - in February 2024 - we will also launch a campaign where everyone who entrusts us with an order over 100 BGN will receive a gift - the book with a divider and a branded mug.
And now we turn to Alex to find out more about him and the road to publishing the book "Start an Online Business in 24 Hours".
Boryana Popova (Hosting Jump): Alex, tell us more about yourself - what do you do now and how did you get started in this field?
Alex Nenov: I describe myself as a serial entrepreneur. In short - I am a person who never stops starting new ventures, mostly businesses. I started in 1996 when I was still a teenager. I was not allowed to start a business back then, so I had my 80-year-old grandmother register the business in her name. You work like that for a while until you have the years you need to start your own business.
I sold my first website at the age of 24, and without realizing it, I made the biggest public transaction on the Bulgarian Internet with the website teenproblem.net.
Over the years I have created hundreds of websites for clients and dozens of my projects. I have been involved in the sale of the nasamnatam.com website 3 times. I detailed this in my last book because anyone can sell a business, but not everyone can do it 3 times and the story is funny.
The most important idea I try to convey to my customers and readers is to take the first step today.
Boryana Popova (Hosting Jump): How did you reach out to us - Hosting Jump - to offer to participate and support your idea?
Alex Nenov: Building an online business goes hand in hand with the right infrastructure - hosting, servers, and domain management. Over the last 20+ years, I have worked with all kinds of companies in our country and many international hosting providers.
I came across an article about the history of Hosting Jump and read it without skipping a single sentence. In times when you only scroll to read the bullet points, that means a lot.
I love stories like this because they really get to me and only show one thing - the people behind this company are of my blood type and for some strange reason we have grown apart over time.
I said to myself - I want to work with these people. And that's what I did. Dozens of my customers are already enjoying a better hosting experience.
Boryana Popova (Hosting Jump): However, this is not your first book on this topic! Tell us more about your first book - how was the idea born, how was it realized, and were there difficulties, or lessons learned?
Alex Nenov: The story of my first book is a favorite part of my talk, where I encourage people to get started immediately. One day in the shower, I had the idea that I should write a book to systematize everything my clients have ever asked me.
In this way, I was able to reach not only the people I could physically see during the consultations I conducted but tens of thousands.
I came out of the bathroom and sent an email to my favorite publisher. It was late in the evening and I got a reply almost immediately - "Send us a chapter and we'll talk". I didn't have a single chapter…. I just had an idea.
The next day I sat down and started writing. I submitted the first chapter and immediately got a call saying we were going to start the project.
"1 Click Away" was an absolute bestseller when it was written, but "How to Make Money on the Internet" certainly builds on my first book. Of course, I sold most of the print run online, which is a testament to everything in the book itself.
Boryana Popova (Hosting Jump): To understand that with the book "Start an Online Business in 24 Hours" you are already treading a well-trodden path with clear know-how! But I still think there were new lessons and an upgrade with the new book. What were they? What has the new book added to your coffin of experience?
Alex Nenov: The Internet is evolving at an incredibly fast pace, and in each of my books I have presented different ideas and principles for managing and leveraging these rapid changes.
For me, the most important thing is not to present readers with a particular trend, but to tell them about it, to lay the foundations for online business.
If my rules are followed, the business will work, whether the current platform is Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or something newer.
If in the old books I emphasized the online business models, in the new book I give a solution on how you can do everything quickly and easily.
The most important thing about starting a business is that you do it today, while you still have energy and motivation.
Constantly developing software or designs, and thinking about complex technical tasks can cost a lot of energy and destroy a company before it has even started.
Boryana Popova (Hosting Jump): Where can the book be purchased?
Alex Nenov: The book is available in most bookstores in the country - online and offline, but I would recommend the website of bestbooks.bg. And that's the only place where my books are signed.
Boryana Popova (Hosting Jump): Are you planning active campaigns to get closer to your audience?
Alex Nenov: If you tell someone that you can technically implement their business idea within 24 hours, they are usually skeptical.
It is precisely for this reason that I am planning an event this year in which I will visually show what is written in the book by realizing a project in real time together with the audience in the hall.
I don't know if anything like this has been done before, but we have done it for our clients. I remember one occasion when we traveled to my partner's wedding. He was getting married the next day and we got a call from a client that we couldn't pass up. We stopped at a gas station and worked there for a few hours, but we got the project done.
Boryana Popova (Hosting Jump): How do you manage to relax with such a busy schedule? Share about your hobbies and little secrets.
Alex Nenov: I am not one to rest. Not in the classical way. Since childhood, I've been obsessed with the idea that I have no time and rush into everything as if I'm already too late.
Even when I walk the streets I do it at this pace - in a hurry. I like to get up at 4 and work while everyone else is still sleeping. During the day I spend as much as possible with my family - my sons and my wife. When I have a little time left, I write fantasy novels and short stories.
Immersion in abstractions, parallel realities, time-space paradoxes, and a look into the distant future is a good exercise and gives a more lateral view of the reality in which we live.
Boryana Popova (Hosting Jump): As someone who thinks a lot about the future, do you have any predictions about the internet, technology, or artificial intelligence?
Alex Nenov: Great authors such as Isaac Asimov, Arthur Clarke, and Robert Heinlein predicted most of the technologies we take for granted today. Artificial intelligence has been anticipated by futurists since the beginning of the last century.
I honestly can not wait and hope to see a court system controlled by AI. Why not a government based entirely on AI? That scares a lot of people because they have seen movies where the AI goes crazy and starts killing people. But those are movies.
The reality is that if we let an AI rewrite a law, it will do so without causing conflict in 20 other laws and creating a bigger problem than it solved - something politicians do every day, not just in our country, but all over the world. He will simply write the perfect rules.
If he thinks about the good future of a company, a country, or the world, he will have no vested interests, will not be corruptible, and will formulate his ideas rationally and not emotionally, as most political movements do.
The time will come when everyone will have their own AI assistant, but it will have nothing to do with the current primitive role models like Alexa.
This assistant will know us in detail, know everything about us, and have the ability to act independently - to give us solutions without us even asking for them.
Imagine someone who takes care of your health, your family's diet, your finances, organizes your vacations and does everything exactly the way you expect and love.
The advent of AI will lead to solving the problem of the most serious diseases, such as cancer. We will also have solutions for nuclear fusion and all windmills, solar power plants and such exotics will be history, just like it happened with mp3 players in the early days of streaming services.
The upswing that humanity will experience in the next 20 years will help us to make leaps in our development at ever shorter intervals. In short - the best times in human history are ahead of us.
We thank Alex for the outstretched hand of partnership and the brilliantly implemented project "Start an online business in just 24 hours".
You can get the book with a divider and branded mug in February as our 13th birthday gift! Here is how we at Hosting Jump celebrated our 13th birthday:
