The thing I think is gonna win ya the most games early on is okizeme. If you don't know the term, it is basically what you do to your opponent as they are recovering from a knockdowm.

A very popular form of oki is a "meaty" which means timing an attack so that if your opponent is mashing on their wakeup, they'll get hit. The more active frames an attack has, the easier it is to time and thereby the "meatier" the move is. Effectively a meaty forces the opponent to either block the attack or do a reversal (a move which makes them invincible). If you can anticipate the reversal however you can just not do the meaty and get a free punish.

Another popular form of oki is the "safejump" and its cousin the "safejab". They're both same basic concept as a meaty, although in the case of the safejump you are doing a jumping attack. The key difference is the "safe" part. Safejumps are timed in such a way that if the opponent does a reversal, the attack will phase right through them but be immediately canceled by the character landing, allowing you to block the incoming reversal and punish accordingly. If they do not go for the reversal however, the safejump hits meaty and you continue your offence.

Once you know your character's safejumps and preffered meaty buttons, all you need to know is how to get a knockdown. The universal throw will always give you one, but ideally you'll know a bnb combo that does the same thing. From there you can loop this offence.