TechBack
Where it all started
Started 2014-2017
I was 22. Fresh out of college. Didn't know much about the world. But I knew I loved teaching.
Started something simple. Called it TechBack. Coach and curator. That's what I called myself.
Not founder. Not CEO. Just someone who wanted to teach.
THE SETUP
Every weekend, I'd take buses across South India.
Bangalore to Mangalore. Bangalore to Manipal. Wherever colleges would have me.
Teaching web development workshops. Bootstrap. Responsive design. HTML and CSS fundamentals.
I didn't have much. A laptop. Some slides. A lot of enthusiasm.
THE APPROACH
I started with the basics. The stuff most workshops skip.
What's the difference between an id and a class in HTML? How do HTML elements actually work? Why does this code break and that code doesn't?
Students would show up confused. Leave building actual websites.
One student wrote later: "It was in this workshop that I figured out the difference between an id and a class in HTML!"
That's what mattered. The click. The moment something makes sense.
THE RATING
98%.
I was naive. Didn't know if I was any good. But those ratings? They boosted my confidence. Told me this wasn't just something I liked doing. It was something I could actually do well.
Students wrote things like:
- "The only workshop in my life where I sat in the first row."
- "Your style of teaching is simply amazing."
- "Tanay teaches everything in layman terms and insists on asking questions when in doubt."
Reading those felt unreal. I was just a kid myself. But I was helping people learn. That felt important.
THE IMPACT
A student named Aniket wrote an entire article on GeeksforGeeks about his journey with web development. He mentioned the TechBack workshop as the turning point.
He went from being confused about basic HTML to building his own resume website. Deployed it on Azure. Optimized it with CDN and lazy loading. All because something clicked in that workshop.
That's the stuff that keeps you going. Not the money. Not the recognition. The moment when you see someone get it.
WHAT HAPPENED NEXT
In 2017, I joined Microsoft. Worked on Teams and Outlook. Built features used by millions.
Great job. ₹1 crore salary. Everything I'd worked for.
But I never stopped thinking about teaching.
The TechBack days taught me something: I was good at explaining things. I cared about whether people actually understood. And that mattered more than I realized.
THE RETURN
In 2020, during COVID, I started neoG Camp. Part-time at first.
People were losing jobs. Needed new skills. I remembered what teaching felt like. So I started again.
Then it grew. 50 students placed. Then 100. Then 1000+.
In 2021, I left Microsoft. Went back to teaching full-time.
People asked why. Simple answer: I'd been teaching since I was 22. TechBack taught me I was good at it. Microsoft taught me how to build at scale.
Now I'm combining both. Teaching thousands. Building platforms. Making education accessible.
THE FULL CIRCLE
TechBack was small. Local. Just me and a bus schedule and students who wanted to learn.
I was 22. Naive. Driven. Didn't know what I was doing half the time.
But those workshops? That 98% rating? Those student testimonials?
They showed me who I could be.
Ten years later, I'm still teaching. Just at a bigger scale.
neoG Camp. Invact. On Ground Labs.
But it all started with TechBack. With weekend workshops. With a 22-year-old who cared about whether students actually understood.
That kid is still here. Just with more experience now. And more students to help.