Ahuja - How to make a fortune on the Internet: a guide for anyone who really wants to create a massive - and passive - income for life

HOW TO MAKE
A FORTUNE ON
THE INTERNET

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All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or stored in an information retrieval system (other than for the purposes of review), without the express permission of the Publisher given in writing.

The right of Ajay Ahuja to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Ajay Ahuja 2011

First edition 2007

Reprinted 2007

Reprinted 2009

Second edition 2011

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 84528 469 5
eISBN 978 1 84803 596 6

Cover design by Mousemat Design Ltd

Produced for How to Books by Deer Park Productions, Tavistock

Typeset by Pantek Arts Ltd, Maidstone, Kent

Printed and bound by Bell & Bain Bain Ltd, Glasgow

NOTE: The material contained in this book is set out in good faith for general guidance and no liability can be accepted for loss or expense incurred as a result of relying in particular circumstances on statements made in this book. Laws and regulations are complex and liable to change, and readers should check the current position with the relevant authorities before making personal arrangements.

Cover by Mousemat Design

I should first tell you what I am not:

I am not a computer science graduate

I am not an IT consultant

I am not a computer programmer

I am not a reclusive internet geek

I am not computer trained in any way.

The first computer I got was a BBC Micro Model B when I was 13 years old and all I used it for was to play games. All subsequent computers I got were for playing games (even though I convinced my parents they were for my studies!) up until the year 1999.

The computer I got in 1999 was a second-hand office computer which I bought for 200. I had just recently left my full-time job and I had got so used to surfing the internet and emailing my friends at work I couldnt really do without one. I had left my job to pursue a music career, as well as start my own businesses.

By the year 2000 I was using the internet a lot to find investment properties around the UK. I reckon I was one of the first people to use rightmove.co.uk, an estate agency portal where you could conduct property searches and get results made up of all the estate agents registered with rightmove. It would save you a lot of time because you needed to perform the search only once and rightmove would aggregate all the results and display them on one page. Six years on this site has got a Stock Exchange listing valuing the company at over half a billion pounds!

Anyway, back in 2000 I would use rightmove to find hotspot areas to invest in, as I would perform a search for a property based on my criteria (anything under 40,000) and see what came up. When something came up I would visit the area and all the estate agents in that area, including all the estate agents that were not registered with rightmove, and buy everything I could afford. I made a lot of money on the back of this as I would find areas with cheap properties which I would buy, rent out and get a good return on.

Now dont ask me why, but I felt the need to tell everyone what I was doing. It was so simple. I would view a property on rightmoves site, travel to the area, place offers on several properties, raise 100% of the finance with my mortgage broker, buy the properties and let them out. Everything I was buying would rent out and appreciate in value enabling me to buy even more. It was at this point I got the idea of writing a book.

So I got on my computer and composed a letter headed How to Achieve 100,000 p.a. Through Property and I wrote the contents page for my idea for the book in this letter. Then I got on the internet and searched for book publishers. I knew nothing about how to get a book deal, I just thought I would make communication with them and see what happens. I faxed 18 publishers and three responded!

Eventually I did a deal with my first publisher, Lawpack, and in 2001 I wrote my first book about property investment called The Buy To Let Bible. I had no formal writing training. I simply wrote as I spoke. Today it is the best-selling book on UK property investment and is often quoted by property professionals. Id like to think I have made a few millionaires from people reading my books.

Not content with my first book I contacted other publishers with my idea 147 wake up calls for financial success and at this point I came in to contact with How To Books, a publisher who publishes books to help people achieve what they want to achieve. They were considering my book idea and after much deliberation How To Books refused to publish it!

The boss of How To Books phoned me up and politely informed me it wasnt for them. I then launched into my sales speech about how I could link the book up to a text messaging service, do this, do that, do whatever so that it would sell. I think the boss liked my sales speech and agreed to squeeze me in between two meetings to talk further.

I met the boss and his wife and we got on. I showed them my ideas and even though they were impressed they still were not convinced. I also mentioned another book idea off the cuff called The A to Z of Buy To Let Hotspots. As soon as I mentioned this idea the boss said:

Ill Have That!

I was a bit surprised at how quickly he came to that decision since we had been negotiating the butt out of the other original idea. However who am I to challenge his request for my off the cuff idea! So my second and third books were born:

Buy To Let Property Hotspots and
Property Hotspots in London.

Again, these were a success when they were released. However since the property market was moving so fast the books became outdated very quickly. Then I had an idea. Why dont I create a website that gives the reader a hotspot every month? This meant even though the book went out of date the website would not. And if we promote the website in the book we can get readers to convert into subscribers of the site. So my first site was born in October 2003 called propertyhotspots.net.

Since I knew nothing about computer programming I paid around 4,000 to get the site constructed. It was a members only site and I charged 24.95 for six months access and 37.95 for 12 months access. I had no idea how to promote the site, but after a chance conversation with a guy named Adam (who became quite significant further down the line), who I had advised previously about property investment, I learned about Google AdWords.