Why I built PrepSavvy

I'm Mark Khoury, CEO and founder of PrepSavvy. I am a data scientist, venture builder, and entrepreneur. This is my story of why I built PrepSavvy.

Why I wanted to do an MBA

I knew I wanted to do an MBA from the time I was in university. I had worked with impact investment firms, family offices, and venture capital funds investing in high-growth tech. The SaaS and cloud revolutions were reshaping how companies were built, and I had a front-row seat to some of the most promising ventures of the era: Lyft, Spotify, Snapchat, and more. Some of the most incredible people I met were entrepreneurs, and many of those entrepreneurs had MBAs. I wanted to be around people like them.

In pursuit of that goal, I took bigger risks. I moved to Beirut and networked my way into an investment role at MEVP, the largest venture capital firm in MENA. I spent two years as an investment analyst between Beirut and Dubai, identifying high-potential startups across internet, consumer, and SaaS businesses, and meeting entrepreneurs from across the region and around the world.

Through that network, I met two promising founders building Fresha and developed a strong rapport with them. I joined as their first data hire, became Chief Analytics Officer within four years, and grew the analytics team to twelve. I became a co-founding member of a venture that would go on to become one of Europe's newest unicorns.²

Presenting at Fresha

As exhilarating as building Fresha was, I still yearned to return to the U.S. and pursue the MBA I had always dreamed of. In 2022, I decided to begin preparing. However, one obstacle stood in the way: the GMAT.

Studying for the GMAT

Studying for the GMAT was remarkably humbling. I had studied engineering and worked with numbers throughout my career, first in investing and then in data science. I considered myself quantitatively strong, yet the GMAT seemed to disagree: my first practice tests put me in the 60th percentile. Somehow, my quantitative ability wasn't being measured by what I knew about data warehousing, predictive models, or statistics. It depended on how many socks I needed to pull out of a drawer to get a matching pair, or how many ways I could arrange books on a shelf.

I got to work. Studying alongside a full-time job meant reorganizing my life. After nine- or ten-hour days filled with meetings, I didn't have the brain capacity to open a textbook. Instead, I moved my bedtime from midnight to nine and started waking up at four. By 4:30am, I had my instant coffee and my books open. For months, I studied before heading to the office.

Through hard work and persistence, I scored a 760, in the 99th percentile. I remember feeling lucky on test day: after all that preparation, the questions seemed easy. When I saw my score, I was beaming. The MBA I had dreamed of was within reach.

My MBA experience

Fast forward: I was accepted into Chicago Booth, the number one business school in the country when I enrolled in 2023.³ I remember the elation I felt the day I got my acceptance and was added to a Slack channel full of high-caliber entrepreneurs, founders, bankers and consultants.

At a Chicago Booth gala event with the love of my life

Chicago Booth gave me access to opportunities I would not have had otherwise. It enhanced my network with brilliant people from all walks of life. It let me pivot my career at a time when AI and technology were flourishing. And it taught me fundamental skills in corporate strategy, marketing and analytics, along with how the echelons of power work in corporate America.

My mission with PrepSavvy

I built PrepSavvy because I remember how much I feared the GMAT as the obstacle between me and the MBA, and I realized that feeling is very common. Legacy incumbents charge expensive fees for technology that is not well adapted to the mobile era, often bundled with costly consulting and upsells that sustain their bloated pricing models.

I want more people to have the opportunities I had. I want them to see the GMAT not as an obstacle to overcome, but as a game to be won.

Through technology, AI, adaptive practice and my experience as a data scientist and machine learning expert, I hope to pave the way for people of all backgrounds, regardless of their connections, to demonstrate their capabilities efficiently and on the go, whatever else they are doing.

Your dreams are not out of reach. With PrepSavvy, I hope aspiring students can push themselves to limits they never would have thought possible, and discover their way to professional success, one practice problem at a time.

External links

1. Image credit: Michael Barera, University of Chicago, Charles M. Harper Center, via Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
2. Fresha reaches a $1 billion valuation following KKR investment (Sifted).
3. Chicago Booth and Wharton share the top spot in the 2023 U.S. News MBA rankings (GMAC).