[HN Gopher] Show HN: Quantus - LeetCode for Financial Modeling
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Show HN: Quantus - LeetCode for Financial Modeling
Hi everyone, I wanted to share Quantus, a finance learning and
practice platform I'm building out of my own frustration with
traditional resources. As a dual major in engineering and finance
who started my career at a hedge fund, I found it challenging to
develop hands-on financial modeling skills using existing tools.
Platforms like Coursera, Udemy, Corporate Finance Institute (CFI),
and Wall Street Prep (WSP) primarily rely on video-based tutorials.
While informative, these formats often lack the dynamic,
interactive, and repetitive practice necessary to build real
expertise. For example, the learning process often involves: -
Replaying videos multiple times to grasp key concepts. -
Constantly switching between tutorials and Excel files. - Dealing
with occasional discrepancies between tutorial numbers and the
provided Excel materials. To solve these problems, I created
Quantus--an interactive platform where users can learn finance by
trying out formulas or building financial models directly in an
Excel-like environment. Inspired by LeetCode, the content is
organized into three levels--easy, medium, and hard--making it
accessible for beginners while still challenging for advanced
users. Our growing library of examples includes: - 3-statement
financial models - Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) analysis -
Leveraged Buyouts (LBO) - Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) Here's a
demo video to showcase the platform in action.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDRNHgBERLQ I'd love to hear your
thoughts and feedback! Let me know what other features or examples
you'd find useful.
Author : misstercool
Score : 179 points
Date : 2024-12-12 12:04 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (quantus.finance)
(TXT) w3m dump (quantus.finance)
| StarlaAtNight wrote:
| Love this! Will try it out
| misstercool wrote:
| Thank you!
| westurner wrote:
| How does your solution differ from JupyterHub + ottergrader or
| nbgrader? What about Kaggle Learn?
|
| From taking the Udacity AI Programming in Python course, it looks
| like Udacity has a Jupyter Notebooks -based LMS LRS CMS platform.
|
| How does your solution differ from the "Quant Platform" which
| hosts [Certificate in] "Python for Finance":
| https://home.tpq.io/pqp/
|
| Do you award (OpenBadges) educational credentials as Blockcerts
| (W3C VC Verifiable Claims, W3C DIDs Decentralized Identifiers,)
| with blockchain-certificates/cert-issuer?
| https://github.com/blockchain-certificates/cert-issuer#how-b...
| misstercool wrote:
| Our goal is to help users improve their finance and accounting
| knowledge. This includes acing job interviews and learning how
| to create different financial models for varied sectors.
| Currently, we have no plans to provide coding lessons or
| provide certificates.
| edweis wrote:
| Great interface. I love the fact we can use Google Sheet to do
| the math.
| misstercool wrote:
| thanks! IMO, excel spreadsheet is like the compiler for finance
| folks, there is no better way to learning and practising
| finance on this interface.
| coffeecantcode wrote:
| Just signed up, really looking forward to sharpening my financial
| modeling skills, even after graduating and moving into a field
| where I don't do that sort of thing anymore.
|
| Any plans to create a native mobile application? I couldn't seem
| to find one on the App Store.
| misstercool wrote:
| That's an excellent query! Many have asked for a mobile app.
| Right now, we're improving the desktop version as Excel works
| best on it. Making Excel easy to use on a mobile app isn't
| easy. Our plan is to first make a mobile app centered around
| finance quizzes and concepts. Then, we'll aim to provide a
| complete Excel experience for financial modeling on mobile.
| coffeecantcode wrote:
| The mobile spreadsheet problem is definitely a hurdle, I
| think finance quizzes would be great to have on the go as a
| supplemental education piece.
|
| Breaking down the formulas that work in certain situations or
| how certain modeling strategies are implemented
| _conceptually_ could also lend well to a mobile platform
| without also requiring a "mobile spreadsheet" approach, which
| in all honesty sounds like a nightmare development process.
|
| Either way, love the platform and wishing you all the best!
| misstercool wrote:
| great suggestions, thanks!
| iknownthing wrote:
| People generally use leetcode to prepare for interviews and
| learning is kind of a side-effect so I'm curious are these
| questions similar to those you would find in interviews (i.e.
| like leetcode) or is it more for general learning purposes?
| misstercool wrote:
| The current stage of finance interview is a little bit like
| coding interview 20 years ago, pre-leetcode time, where you
| write sudo code on a paper to answer some coding challenges.
| The coding interview nowadays are quite advanced, I believe
| Leetcode plays huge role.
|
| The best way of learning financial modeling is by doing it on
| the excel. Even though many finance technical interviews still
| focus on behavior type of questions, discussing your model-
| building approach and assumptions. By practising different
| scenarios on Excel, timeboxing it, it will help you refine your
| responses during the interview.
| finnh wrote:
| (may have been autocorrect, but just fyi "pseudocode")
| misstercool wrote:
| oh...thanks, apologize for my typo
| teeray wrote:
| "Thanks for interviewing with us at H&R Block. I'm sure you'll
| be great at helping people file their Income Taxes. In the next
| 45 minutes, we would like you to examine this conference room
| full of Banker's Boxes of records for a Fortune 500 company
| accused of financial wrongdoing. You must determine whether
| they are guilty or not, and if guilty, the nature and extent of
| their crime."
| jbs789 wrote:
| This looks really technically impressive.
|
| As someone who has worked in financial services for close to 20
| years now, what I find interesting is how the experienced deal
| makers/traders/entrepreneurs have established mental models about
| how things work, then when evaluating a deal distill that down to
| a handful of reasons to do it (or not).
|
| So the hard part is knowing what to focus on, which changes based
| on the environment and over time, rather than constructing the
| excel model.
| misstercool wrote:
| Absolutely, the current platform is designed to help beginners
| and intermediate learners to hone their technical skills. I am
| considering expanding in areas such as allowing users to share
| their models and strategies. I understand it can be daunting
| for newcomers to an industry to figure out the best way to
| construct models. What are your thoughts on this?
| barrenko wrote:
| In all seriousness, would this help me with something like
| CFA related certification? What other resources would you
| recommend to go along with Quantus?
| jkcchan wrote:
| really cool, very slick. the beginner content feels very AI
| gen'd, which isn't necessarily a problem. my eyes are conditioned
| to glaze over this type of content, so maybe my issue haha. but i
| really like the concept, and agree there's a huge gap in the
| landscape for a tool like this, so great work!
| misstercool wrote:
| Sure! While beginner content isn't unique, chatGPT can handle
| such questions effectively. Our main aim is to create a mind
| map that helps users understand concepts deeply and apply them
| to build various financial models.
| mdrzn wrote:
| Looks interesting! Is it free? I don't see any pricing page.
| misstercool wrote:
| Yep, it is free for now. The current focus is retention,
| iterate the app and the content.
| itissid wrote:
| Great work on the tool. Looks really useful for basic modeling
| for a businesses who need this.
|
| As a salaried person I would like to see a version of this tool
| for planning ones own portfolios.
|
| 0. Set your risk parameters: Maximum drawdown, expected returns,
| time horizon, fixed income needed, broker platform etc.
|
| 1. Pick ETFs from a specific brokerage that match and find
| different kinds of ETFs for different asset classes, different
| startegies(US, ex-US, Currency Hedged, Buffer, Bullet Shares).
|
| 2. Tools: Rebalancer, be able to find what ETFs are
| cheap/expensive based on current evaluations(P/E) and Historical
| data. Like when fed is raising rates one can invest more in Bond
| Funds(like Bullet Share) that lock in that yield incrementally
| and vice versa.
| 101008 wrote:
| This looks amazing and one of the things I'd love to try if I'd
| have infinite time*
|
| * Not that I use my time wisely, but lately I feel very tired
| when I am on my free/own time, so I don't want to do anything
| that would require concentration.
| mclau156 wrote:
| I have attempted to do financial modeling practice with ChatGPT
| and Claude, but they struggle to come up with interesting data
| needed to make any real insights, is this really just testing our
| knowledge of which business terms to use and which functions to
| use, or is there enough good data to require some ingenuity to
| gain insights from?
| misstercool wrote:
| Yea, I might do more in depth AI integration in the future. The
| hint function has been the most popular one in assassinating
| users learning how to solve the financial modeling problems.
| This platform is designed with the goal of assisting users in
| enhancing their practical skills in financial modeling.
| neilv wrote:
| > _The hint function has been the most popular one in
| assassinating users_
|
| That's the effect of LeetCode on the field of software
| development.
| matt3210 wrote:
| Well... there goes a few weekends of my life wasted. Thanks
| fHr wrote:
| Cool, will try this out!
| josh_carterPDX wrote:
| Thank you for building something like this. Financial modeling
| can be daunting, but I think it's the most important tool for
| entrepreneurs to have in order to understand how best to run
| their business. Can't wait to spend some time playing with this
| tool!
| stonlyb wrote:
| What are the next set of library additions you're planning? Will
| tune in for when you release something on VC term sheets,
| convertible note / SAFE note conversions, and Techno Economic
| Analysis.
| misstercool wrote:
| love this idea!
| noleary wrote:
| Brings me back to my many evenings and weekends spent poring over
| Breaking into Wall Street PDFs :)
|
| This is really awesome
| misstercool wrote:
| +1, so true!
| jbs789 wrote:
| These are always interesting to me bc people respond with
| suggestions for changes.
|
| But what's the authors overall objective? Is it to create a
| marketable product? For whom?
| s0rr0wskill wrote:
| Who is the target audience for this?
|
| As someone who has a CS background but would like to learn more
| about finance but not get too deep into the weeds of math &
| statistics, would this be a good resource? Or is this more for
| people who want to break into quant and practice/learn concepts
| for interviews?
| thethimble wrote:
| Judging by the content this is probably for people interested
| in moving into investment banking.
|
| Doesn't look like stats or advanced math is a major
| prerequisite.
| misstercool wrote:
| Yep, no stats or advanced math is needed. My primary focus is
| to cater to beginner and intermediate users.
|
| For beginners, it is a good tool to understand the basic
| finance and accounting concepts. It is interactive, you can
| practice the formulas via quizzes, much more fun than reading
| a textbook. I suggest you try financial statement module.
|
| For intermediate users, you can practice financial modeling
| by solving generic modeling problems (3-statements, DCF, LBO,
| M&A). It will help you build the muscle memory of using the
| functions/formulas.
|
| For advanced users, I am planning to onboard more industry
| specific modeling content and practice cases.
| headelf wrote:
| Isn't the purpose of AI so I don't have to learn this?
| misstercool wrote:
| Just my personal opinion, feel free to disagree ;). There are
| few issues preventing finance being replaced by AI.
|
| 1. The large portion of finance is customization. AI works on
| the simple models, but it may struggle to perform adequately
| with complex, company-specific situations. Take pilot as
| example, it is an accounting and bookkeeping company with the
| combination of tech solution and human services. There is
| always human in the loop.
|
| 2. Finance deals with the numbers, the bar of accuracy is very
| high.
|
| However, I believe AI can make learning finance much simpler,
| that is why I build this platform.
| headcanon wrote:
| Rest assured that the prevalence of AI means these skills will
| be even more important somehow. AI just made writing and coding
| skills even more important, not less, and I'd imagine the same
| will be true of finance and accounting.
| curious_cat_163 wrote:
| Just signed up. Would be cool to learn about Derivates!
|
| I have an earnest question and I reckon you might have given it
| some thought. Is teaching financial modeling to humans a growing
| market? If so, why do you think that?
|
| If you think not, is the idea here to test this space for a
| product that comes down the road? :)
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(page generated 2024-12-12 23:00 UTC)