Student to Startup Success
By Emma Cilloniz
Former sales consultant at Google, CMO of his growing tech company, and host of his own business podcast, Marc is one of our most renowned student entrepreneurs in the ECE Students Ecosystem. Born and raised in Germany, Marc moved to Barcelona, Spain, at 18 years old because he got offered a full-time job as a sales consultant at Google. After 9 months in this position, he quit and moved to Rotterdam to study International Business Administration (IBA) at Erasmus University.
Simon, Marc’s old colleague, had been working as a freelance website developer and decided to turn his skills into a business. He realized that by building a company, he would create more profit and credibility. Therefore, in January 2023, Marc joined his friend’s initiative and became the Chief Marketing Officer. They worked hard and three months later launched their company, StellarWeb. The now three co-founders work completely remotely: Simon as the Chief Executive Officer from Stuttgart, Germany, Marc as the Chief Marketing Officer from Rotterdam, Netherlands, and Ralph as the Chief Tech Officer from Vienna, Austria. In two years, they have completed eleven projects with clients, making an income of roughly 70000€ euros.
StellarWeb is the company you want to go to when you are creating a business. If you are a student association or an e-commerce selling shoes, you need to have a website to build credibility around your brand. As Marc mentioned, “Every business model requires a different website; that’s why we offer custom-made websites.” Stellar Web provides search engine optimization and website design so your customers can have a seamless online user experience by using programs such as Wagtail (a CRM tool), Astro, Javascript, and PHP to build your website from scratch.
By dedicating 20 to 30 hours a week to StellarWeb, Marc is able to attract new clients, sell his business proposal, do social media, write promotional texts, do advertising, etc., while balancing a full life in Rotterdam. He mentions about his IBA studies: “It is time-consuming, yes, but not very difficult, I would say.” Marc considers his time at Erasmus to be useful because of the networking it allows: “I love the opportunities Erasmus gives aside from the mandatory courses, like ECE Students or a bunch of other associations you can join.” He joined TSEP (Talented Student Entrepreneurship Program), a branch of ECE, as a first-year student to broaden his horizons in the world of entrepreneurship. This later allowed him to get to know ECE Students and become friends with a lot of fellow members. He also loves to spend his free time practicing martial arts in the Erasmus boxing association, playing volleyball with friends, or watching One Piece.
Aside from university and StellarWeb, Marc is also the co-founder of a podcast called Behind The Hustle, which launched on Spotify in September 2024. He explains: “Everyone says yeah just do it (starting a company), be disciplined, work hard, and it will work. But there’s so much more behind it, many more problems, but also much more joy: an emotional rollercoaster. That’s why we are doing this podcast right now because that’s the most authentic way to teach how to build a business.”
Regarding the future, Marc is still deciding where life will take him. He might go back to Spain, travel, or do something else entirely. Either way, he always keeps his passions, StellarWeb and Behind the Hustle, at the front of his decision-making: “I want the company to become something really credible and big. This is a ball that has been rolling, and it’s going to keep growing in size.” Therefore, ECE Students send him the biggest good luck as he continues to navigate the world of entrepreneurship.
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