I Make $20K/Month Helping Students Prepare For Business School
Who are you and what business did you start?
I'm Szilárd, and this is how BBE Insider started. Back in 2023 my co-founder, Nicolas had just gone through the WU Vienna BBE entrance exam himself and saw a problem firsthand. Students preparing with scattered resources, no structure, and no real sense of what the actual exam looked like. He came to me, I proposed the solution, and over the past three years we've built it into the biggest exam prep provider in our market.
BBE Insider serves students applying to WU Vienna's Bachelor's in Business and Economics, one of the most competitive programs in Central Europe. Around 3,000 students apply each year but only 240 get in. Our students are high school across the CEE region.
Year to date we have done about 80k eur, and are expected to make about 200k in total.
How do you come up with the idea for BBE Insider?
Nicolas came to me because he had lived the problem. He did the BBE exam, saw how unprepared most students were, and knew there was no structured resource that actually reflected what the exam looked like. He had the domain knowledge. I had the software background and had been looking for the right idea to build on.
The "aha" moment wasn't complicated. This was a highly targeted, high-intent search term with real urgency behind it. Students who needed to pass a specific exam by a specific date. That's a clean problem to solve.
What made this feel different from other ideas I'd worked on was how quickly we could move. We didn't try to build the perfect product upfront. We launched fast, got real students using it, and built out the platform iteratively based on their feedback. Three years later, that's still how we operate.
Validation came early. Because the search terms were so targeted, the first signups came in quickly. Real students paying real money was enough signal to keep going. We didn't need a waitlist or a survey, the demand was already there, we just had to show up.
My background is in software and entrepreneurship, and Nicolas brought the exam expertise. Between the two of us, we had everything we needed to build and sell this from day one.
How did you launch BBE Insider and get initial traction?
We didn't do a big launch. We built the SEO foundation early and ran Google Ads while we waited for organic traffic to kick in. Back then, before Google's AI overviews took over the top of search results, ranking for a highly targeted term like "WU BBE entrance exam preparation" was straightforward if you put the work in. The ads kept traffic coming in while the SEO compounded.
First users showed up within a week. First paying customer came about three weeks in, and I'll be honest, we had to chase him down. We ended up offering a significant discount just to get him across the line. Not the most elegant first sale, but it was the one we needed. Something clicked at that moment.
The early product was rough. The UI had edges, features were missing, and we knew it. But that's exactly why we stayed close to users. The feedback from those first students shaped almost everything we built afterward.
If I were doing it again, I'd double down sooner on the channels that were already working rather than spreading attention. I'd also do more direct outreach to early users. That one-to-one contact turned out to be a significant conversion driver, and we leaned into it too late.
What was the growth strategy for BBE Insider and how did you scale?
SEO and Google Ads have been the backbone from the start and still are today. That hasn't changed. We invested early in building out content and technical SEO before we had much of a product, which meant by the time the platform was solid, we were already ranking for the terms our students were searching. Google Ads filled the gap in the early months and continues to support paid acquisition alongside organic. If you're in a niche with high-intent search behavior, this combination is hard to beat.
What has evolved significantly is everything we do once someone enters our world. Email marketing became a major growth lever over time. We built out nurture sequences with personalized segmentation based on where a student is in their prep journey. Someone who just started the free sample paper gets a different sequence than someone who registered for the exam and has six weeks left. That kind of timing-based targeting made a measurable difference to conversion rates.
Short-form video is part of the mix but it's unpredictable. Some periods it drives strong signup volume, other times barely anything moves. We treat it as a top-of-funnel awareness channel rather than a direct sales driver, which keeps expectations realistic and prevents us from overinvesting when results dip.
The tactic that had the most direct impact on growth was automating our outreach to existing users. Early on we did this manually, and the conversion lift was immediately noticeable. Once we systematized the process, we could operate it at scale without adding headcount. Reaching out to someone who has already shown intent, at the right moment in their decision process, converts far better than any cold channel.
The honest advice I'd give other founders: build fast, get feedback early, improve, and repeat. Don't wait until the product feels ready. Our early version had real gaps and the students who experienced it still told us exactly what to fix. That feedback loop is how you build something people actually want, and it compounds over time. Three years in, our product is dramatically better because of the users who stuck with us through the rough early days.
What were the biggest lessons learned from building BBE Insider?
The biggest mistake we made was not building awareness before launch. Start early, and when you do outreach, use SMS or WhatsApp over email. The difference in response rates is significant.
Timing worked in our favor. We launched right before peak exam season, which gave us early traction we couldn't have manufactured.
The best decision I made was choosing the right co-founder. Nicolas brought credibility and domain knowledge I could never have bought or faked. That's the highest-return investment in any early business.
Build the habit of making data-driven decisions from day one. Collect data early, even before you think you need it. Tools like PostHog give you visibility that changes how you make every call, from product priorities to campaign timing.
The mistake I see most often from other founders: not talking to users. Silence is not satisfaction. The founders who grow fastest treat user feedback as a core input, not something they get around to eventually.
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More about BBE Insider:
Who is the owner of BBE Insider?
Szilárd Máté is the founder of BBE Insider.
When did Szilárd Máté start BBE Insider?
2023
How much money has Szilárd Máté made from BBE Insider?
Szilárd Máté started the business in 2023, and currently makes an average of $240K/year.
