How reliable is an era of instant money-making apps? - An Interview with Karolis Toleikis, Co-founder and CEO at Pawns.app

Q1. Tell our readers a little about your industrial journey. Your professional experience with digital transitional technologies & business opportunities.

AI got my first computer at a very young age. For me, it was something truly special. Instead of spending time outside, I was on my computer every day, trying to figure out new things, using software, playing video games, and exploring the internet.

Q2. After learning a little bit about you, we deduced that you self-taught yourself how to code by watching instructional videos. What did you think of the experience, and how are you relating that to your current entrepreneurial period?

Between 2009 and 2015, I was mainly learning about creating websites by myself. This experience helped me understand how to develop successful projects and gave me valuable programming knowledge. It’s easy to communicate with programming and create the whole project process if you know what is possible and what might not work that well on the programming side or create issues in the future. While I don’t code anymore, I still do my best to keep up with the newest trends so I can ensure that our projects use the best practices.

Q3. From a Web developer to eventually coming up with the notion of starting a proxy service provider - your experience tells us about shifting opportunities in the digital tech space. What’s your say in this?

After working on a single project for eight years, I decided it was time to move on to something else and learn some new things. The proxy idea came from leasing IP subnets. IP subnet leasing was initially an investment, but I quickly realized there’s a tremendous demand for proxies, especially for companies who need to scrape the web, access the internet without limitations, and increase their online security overall.

With the help of developers, we created a system that allowed us to start working on our proxy project. During those early days, I mostly dealt with everything myself - SEO, marketing, and support. This experience helped me better understand the proxy niche and the market’s needs. After a couple of months, I realized that it was time to expand our team if we wanted to grow. Fortunately, everything worked out pretty well.

Q4. Why did you think of creating a money-making application & how did the idea of adding paid surveys to your existing app IPRoyal and making it Pawns.app arrive?

Pawns was initially a side project for us. We developed it to help IPRoyal build a bigger pool of IP addresses since that’s what our clients needed. However, later on, we decided to transition it to Pawns.app and develop one of the top-earning apps that any person in the world could use to make some extra money. We added the Surveys option, and we’re currently working on bringing it to every supported country. Also, we plan to add more ways for our users to earn money in 2023.

Q5. Do you think the age of rapid money-making apps is providing customers with enough privacy & security?

Pawns.app allows the user to choose how they want to use it. To earn money through Surveys, all they need to do is sign up and provide an email address. On the other hand, if they want to earn a passive income by sharing their internet connection, they’ll also have to share their IP address with us. Of course, we require all our clients to confirm their identity before accessing our network. We also monitor all traffic 24/7, so Pawns.app users don’t have to worry about their IP addresses being abused in any way.

Q6. Where do you believe Pawns.app stands in terms of dependability and potential for long-term growth. What are its USPs?

Pawns.app is still pretty new. We’ll be expanding our team to work separately on this project soon. In other words, 2023 will be a big year and we plan to show the true potential of Pawns.app. Our goal is to make it one of the top 3 global survey applications and we expect our user base to increase five times by the end of the next year.

Q7. What do you think the forthcoming technological integration with online money-making apps will look like?

In most cases, you need to share some data with a third party to earn money. With surveys, companies looking for honest, unbiased feedback pay you to answer questions about their products, services, marketing efforts, and other areas of interest. There are also other ways for users to trade their data for money without any negative consequences. In fact, we’re already sharing a lot of our information online. From search queries on Google to purchase history on Amazon - companies use this data to tailor our experience and present us with information we might be interested in. 

The only key difference here is that they don’t pay the user for this data. That’s what we’re aiming to change with Pawns.app - our users get paid for the opinions and experiences they share through surveys. We have many exciting ideas and new ways to earn money coming to our app in the near future.

Q8. What obstacles did you encounter in the market when you developed the concept of money-making software using a proxy service provider?

Some people were initially skeptical about Pawns.app, which is understandable. Sharing your IP address in exchange for a real passive income does sound strange. After all, the internet is full of scams, so a healthy dose of skepticism doesn't hurt. However, as soon as the first payouts started rolling out, we started gaining credibility, and things became much easier. More and more people started joining the app and making money with it. After a while, we added the Surveys feature, which helped us reach an even bigger audience and made it easier for our users to choose how they want to earn with Pawns.app.

Q9. What were the factors that you didn't want to compromise on when you decided to evolve IPRoyal to Pawns.app?

We decided to separate Pawns.app from IPRoyal and develop a leading money-making app. Our team recognized the opportunity to provide people worldwide with a reliable income source and several ways to earn money. Our ultimate goal is to have between 5 and 10 ways to earn a side income in a single app and let our users choose which ones work best for them.

Q10. If you participate in paid surveys on Pawns.app, you must also work with the B2B market. How do brands use customer responses without violating their privacy?

Users who participate in surveys agree with the terms and conditions and allow businesses to use the provided answers in their market research, product development, marketing strategy development, and more. However, it’s important to note that our users don’t need to provide any personal information - we don’t need their names, IDs, or any other identifying data. We only ensure that we deliver surveys to users in countries or regions our clients are interested in. Everything else is anonymous.

Q11. What industry lessons have you learned over the course of your more than 14 years of experience that you'd like to share with our readers?

I’m currently 32 years old, with around 14 years of experience in the IT sector, if we count my first internet radio or e-commerce project as a starting point. Here’s what I learned during that time about creating successful projects:

• You can’t create big projects alone because there’s no way you’ll have enough time to do everything by yourself and do it properly.
• You don’t need to be experienced in all areas. However, you must choose wisely and surround yourself with good, capable people who can fill those experience gaps and help you find a way to do things better.
• It’s essential to motivate your team as much as possible and share the results, successes, and failures with the people around you. If the team is excited and motivated to reach the goals you set instead of just wanting to finish work early, your chances to create something big and successful significantly increase.

Key takeaways-

• Planning projects that require programming gets easier if you already have enough experience with programming to predict what might work and what might not from the programming perspective
• The demand for proxies is quite high among companies, especially if they are focusing on web scrapping, accessing the internet without limitations, and improving their online security
• Pawns.app initially was a side project to help IPRoyal but later transitioned to a permanent app to provide its users with an option to earn real cash online
• In 2023, Pawns.app is expected to offer more features to its users that can open up more ways to earn money on the platform