I am Pritesh Pawar – a tech-enthusiast who loves to build digital products and market them online. People call me P2. It’s my pen name.

Currently, you might be knowing me because of my products, gadget recommendations, digital marketing services, or simply because of my online content.

Like every individual, I have a background story that carved me to become the person I am right now.

2010-2012: The First Glance of Online Journey

My sister created a brand new Gmail account and a Facebook account in a cyber cafe. After that, I used to visit the cyber cafe for an hour every Sunday.

There was no internet on my phone. In fact, I was not owning a phone because I was in school.

Spending one hour every week might sound too little now but it was a great privilege at that time. The Internet was new for me.

The websites were limited with the boring interfaces, Facebook was new and FB friends were just my schoolmates.

Spending an hour per week on Facebook might sound to be fun now but it was boring. I hardly had a dozen friends from my class and nobody used to post anything. My feed used to be empty.

So what now? I tried to learn new things using Yahoo (yes, Google was not mainstream yet) and Yahoo News & Yahoo Answers covered the homepage.

I made my account on Yahoo Answers and discovered a whole new world of online forums. People from different parts of the world came together to discuss things and answer questions.

I spent my time on Yahoo Answers to answer and discuss. At times, I fought with netizens as well. That’s how Yahoo was! There was no moderation.

One fine Sunday, I tried to log in to my account and found that my account was suspended. I still don’t know the exact reason.

I didn’t even bother because I barely spent an hour per week and never had anything serious with that account.

Life happened. My board exams were nearing and I stopped visiting that cyber cafe.

I took a complete break from the Internet till 2013 since my phone didn’t support the Internet. Later I got my first smartphone. I was not allowed to use the internet on it. It was costly.

Coming from a non-metro city where we are forced to concentrate on life’s most important exam of 10th standard, I gave up blogging for almost 2 years. 

I realized that I was more passionate about writing than any other field although I was not too good and I am still learning it.

11th and 12th standards were super busy with classes, boards, and entrance exam preparation.

2015: Real Journey Starts From Here

Like any other Indian student, I took Engineering. Mistakes happen, you know that right? 

But that is how I got my technical background and I am able to share that with the world. Everything happens for some good.

I shifted to Mumbai to pursue my Engineering in Electronics and Telecommunications. I got into a reputed college of KJ Somaiya.

Should I tell you the truth? My engineering subjects or degree never helped me till now.

Only 2 things mattered till now – right people to get inspiration and eagerness to learn new things.

Guess what? No lecturer, course, degree, or college can teach you this.

However, Mumbai and the hustle-culture massively helped me to grow. I could never get this energy in my previous city where I grew up. I can still feel the difference.

Your environment matters a lot. Similar-minded people give you a push that helps you to grow. Thankfully, I got an amazing group of friends during my Engineering who are equally passionate to learn and do new things.

I spent my first year wasting time and playing mobile games in my free time (whole day). I kept playing Clash of Kings on my phone and it was an addictive game. Somehow, that’s how I spent my time. No productivity.

April 4, 2016: Started Using Quora ~ The Life Changer

A writer friend suggested that I should start writing on Quora as it was a growing community of high-quality posts.

I asked some intellectual questions to match the standard of the website. Answered several questions to satisfy my hunger for writing.

I used to post one answer daily. Every night, I would sit on my sofa in utter darkness and type on my keyboard attached to my mobile phone. Yes, I didn’t even have a laptop.

I kept doing this for 3 years consistently – 1000+ blogs in the form of answers.

During this timeframe, I kept writing about all the niches and industries that I could come across – 

• Technology
• Social Media
• Engineering
• Career Advices
• Travel
• India
• Hobbies
• Survey Questions

Meanwhile, I kept freelancing as a content writer in this timeframe. I will come back to this soon.

I made tons of Quora friends, met new people, attended Quora meetups, got clients, and so on. Quora had a real impact on my life.

April 8, 2016: Created First Online Blog

Originally, Quora was a question-and-answer website. But it had an option to create a personal blog where you could create random posts (this feature is discontinued now).

Within 4 days of writing answers to various questions, I wanted to build something for myself. A self-made space without relying on questions to answer.

I came up with ‘The Unrevealed Anecdotes’

I started posting short stories over there. No niche. No topics. No strategies. Purely love of writing.

June 6, 2016: Got First Freelance Client

I got a message at 11:28 PM on Quora which was full of praises followed by an opportunity to work for his American entertainment website.

It took me some time to digest and I was very skeptical about this opportunity. 

I didn’t even share my Whatsapp number because I thought he was a scammer. I carried out the formalities over email only.

But I decided to take this chance. After all, I was not making money at all. So even if the client scammed me, I would not lose anything as such.

I agreed and finally started writing blogs for his website. Heck! I was not even aware of the rates of a content writer!

But I got a decent first amount of Rs 5000 🙂

I have always been lucky in terms of the quality of clients.

Let me be very honest. I didn’t know what freelancing meant. I never imagined that writing can fetch some money as well.

According to my limited pool of knowledge, only novelists could make money by writing. Otherwise, journalists make money and it needs a degree. I was already dived into Engineering so it was not possible.

February 28, 2017: Expansion of ‘The Unrevealed’ Brand

I was already running a Quora blog named ‘The Unrevealed Anecdotes’ with thousands of readers per month.

To expand this brand name, I opened up an account called ‘The Unrevealed Quotes’ on YourQuote

I used YourQuote because I always believed in fast execution. This app provided me with ready-made templates to write quotes. I could make an Instagram post within 30 seconds.

Being one of the early adopters of this app, the core team followed my profile. It was so early. 

March 25, 2017: Launched First Instagram Page

YourQuote was doing good and I was already getting my graphic content there. However, I decided to jump on Instagram as growth and opportunities were massive.

I started posting on my Instagram page. I wrote one unique quote per day for 3 years!

This is where I learned about brand collaborations, festive marketing, copywriting, and several other things.

Later I made several other Instagram pages for various purposes and soon stopped being active over there due to a mismatch of audience type and niche of my products.

February 18, 2019: Launched My First Website

While I was busy growing my Instagram page for 2 years, I always wanted to have a personal website. Do you know why it took me 2 years to launch my first website?

I was learning and testing with multiple websites. Before launching priteshpawar.com, I had 7-8 free websites.

I tried everything – 

• Custom coded website
• Wix
• WordPress.com
• Google Sites
• Google Blogspot
• WordPress.org

Finally, I settled on a self-hosted WordPress.org website 🙂

My closest friend gifted me a domain and hosting on my birthday and that’s how I launched this website.

Within 6 months, this website started ranking for 700+ keywords.

I learned website designing, SEO, content marketing, email marketing, community management, and some technicals of web hosting by practically applying on this website.

June 10, 2019: Joined Media.Net ~ One of the Largest AdTech Network

I was skipping all the IT companies because I think I was not really meant for it. However, online advertising and digital marketing attracted me.

I nailed my interviews for Media.Net and got selected as a Research Analyst from campus placement.

Since I have already covered the whole journey and my interviews in my ebook, I want to skip that part here.

I loved the overall company, culture, people, flexibility, and perks. There was not even a single day where I felt burdened with my work.

Best part? My managers and seniors supported my side projects. It was a hard decision to move on from here but we need to take tough decisions for growth.

October, 2019: Started Podcasting & Creating TikTok Videos [Privately]

Before you start judging me for making TikTok videos, let me clarify that I was a part of the EduTok campaign on TikTok that primarily focused on educational content.

Why did I start podcasting and creating video content on TikTok?

I have always been an introvert. I wanted to get away from that image of being a silent and shy guy. To overcome my fear of the camera, I started recording myself.

Every night at 1 AM after returning from my office, I used to shoot 2 TikTok videos and 1 podcast. It used to take 1 hour and I used to sleep by 2 AM. By the way, I used to wake up by 7 AM in the morning.

Let me tell you, these platforms were totally unannounced because I was treating them as my playgrounds to learn. When nobody knows you in the crowd, you remain confident and fearless of being judged.

Those days were tough but totally worth it. I got immense confidence in facing the camera and taking sessions on video calls. My podcasting helped me with my speaking skills.

I consistently carried this out for 100 days and decided to launch another podcast in public.

Finally, on 13th May 2020, I launched a brand new Podcast channel named “Talk to P2” which is available on more than 17 platforms right now.

I had 2 TikTok accounts – Hindi and Marathi. My aim was to share the knowledge with tier-2 and tier-3 audiences.

No prizes for guessing that TikTok was banned and both of my IDs vanished overnight. I had made a good number of followers due to the virality of the platform and relationships with celebrity creators on that platform. 

January 1, 2020: Launched “Digital Nexus” eBook

I just wanted to write an ebook but I had no idea what and how to publish one. Moreover, I was even clueless about the topic.

I am not really a novelist or fiction writer. So, I decided to share my knowledge in cyber security in the simplest words. This idea came up because of the silliest online practices of the most educated people.

It seemed and still seems that people barely take their online identity and safety seriously. I ended up writing short stories with fictional case studies to explain the concepts of cyber security.

It was fun to write and publish on my website.

I could publish it on Amazon or any other ebook marketplace but the satisfaction of publishing under your own brand is different.

February 18, 2020: Launched “Digital Terminus” Android App

Honestly, I just wanted an Android app under my name. I was never a programmer or app developer. Just wanted to market my app.

I merely made an MVP and launched it with basic functionalities. But you know what? That was my best decision to not put too much effort into building a full-fledged app.

I realized the importance of a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) at that time. No wonder, the app failed. I have explained the 5 reasons why it failed on Twitter.

To all the product makers reading this – always build an MVP first!

October 26, 2020 (Dusshera): Launched “What After Engineering?” eBook

I had written a blog post about career options after engineering. Based on that, my well-wisher and mentor Sudhir Sir suggested converting that content into an ebook.

I liked that idea and started finding easy ways to convert the whole blog post into PDF. I even found some great tools and ways to do that. But I wanted to add more content and improve the quality.

So, I added some more chapters to my ebook and made it presentable.

Till now, I was very well aware of the hyping and marketing of a product. I did that. Result? We got 100+ downloads on the first day of launch.

While writing this ebook, I already started generating interest in Tech Startups. This gave an idea – to build Chopping Tech.

January 26, 2021: Launched Chopping Tech

Chopping Tech was the first paid product that I launched under my brand name. It’s a platform for job seekers and freelancers to find Tech Startups of their niche.

I learned so many things while building this product – eCommerce, payment gateways, sales, outreach, automation, funnels, ads, and so on.

The aim was simple. Traditional job portals don’t directly link out to companies but act as mediators. I want people to directly connect to companies.

Also, these job portals have a business model of selling user data or upselling premium products. I decided to take a membership fee and deliver value with full user control.

Since I picked up a narrow niche due to my personal interest, I decided to do it for Tech Startups only.

I gave everything to Chopping Tech members. I gave them a complete list of Tech Startups in India, taught them about researching similar Tech Startups, and even outreaching them by sending cold emails. In fact, I even taught about automating this whole process.

Chopping Tech became the first platform dedicated to job openings at Tech Startups in India.

June 14, 2021: Launched Shopping Tech

I always wanted to build a collection of cool electronic gadgets for my website users. That collection can be used to select a cool gift for some friend or just order a product for yourself.

I had an eCommerce store before but the company which I was using to support the infrastructure stopped its operations.

So, my previous eCommerce store got shut down. Shopping Tech is a relaunch of the same store.

Do check it out once if you ever need help with selecting amazing gadgets.

July 1, 2021: Joined Brainstorm Force ~ Astra WordPress Theme & Other Plugins

I always used the Astra WordPress theme and several other products made by Brainstorm Force. Because it is the most popular player in the WordPress community with a very high reputation. But here is the twist.

I was completely unaware that BSF is an Indian company based in Pune.

In January 2021, Sujay Pawar (CEO of Brainstorm Force) sent me a message on Whatsapp. I thought he was looking for my freelance services. 

I politely declined because of 2 reasons – I was equipped with my existing clients and I was not aware that he was the CEO of a popular WordPress brand. He was so humble that he just introduced himself as a team manager.

But when I did some research and got to know about him and his brand, I decided to join the team.

It’s an interesting story and I will cover it in detail in another blog post 🙂

August 15, 2021: Launched MagLead

I gave everything to Chopping Tech members. I gave them a complete list of Tech Startups in India, I taught them about researching similar Tech Startups and even outreaching them by sending cold emails.

As Chopping Tech started growing, users started asking, “How can we get emails of business people or decision-makers?”

That was a legit problem too. Finding emails by researching manually is an effective process but it takes time and energy.

I tried to automate this as well. MagLead is a SaaS platform that automatically scans business websites and finds the relevant information present on web pages.

Since I launched Chopping Tech on Republic Day of 2021, I decided to launch MagLead on Independence Day of 2021.

That’s how it worked till now.

Other Notes

I kept learning several things to keep adding various features on this website – live news, calculators, tools, etc.

I even kept learning every aspect of digital marketing just to test and learn new things.

In short, when you are a freelancer and a product manager of your products then you are literally a one-man army.

You need to make funnels, create content, show up on social platforms, outreach people, generate leads, convert them, make sales, manage finances, look upon the development of side-projects, market them and do every possible thing that a company does by using its massive team.

You are no less than a startup if you are operating as an individual. If you can manage all these things all alone, you learn so many things that no job or degree can ever teach you.

Concluding

Thanks for reading the whole story till now.

While this list is going to be updated with time, it’s worth noticing that it took too many failures and a high learning curve to reach this stage.

We all start from level 1.

It’s important to note that I always learned and managed all these things along with my college and a full-time job.

If you can get the best of both worlds, then why not? I am a bachelor with a high-risk appetite and fewer responsibilities. Taking advantage of my age and passion, it’s easy to manage.

For some people, I might be too fast while for others, I might be slow. It’s all about perspective.

But the only thing that always mattered for me – it should be fun and I should enjoy the process. I never stressed myself with revenue goals or deadlines or the excessive number of clients.

For me, satisfaction comes first and everything after that. When I don’t enjoy the process, I will be burned out soon.

Looking to learn Digital Marketing? Then you should check this blog >

If you want to connect with me, you can connect me on my social media handles mentioned on this website. 

If you want to drop a message, just use this contact form. I look forward to connecting with you soon!

P2