Looking for Beta Testers

[txlaw]

Hi folks,

 

I am posting to see if I can recruit any CoBF board members to beta test this web-based software I’ve been working on that is at minimum viable product (MVP) stage.  I’m looking for 15 to 20 testers — preferably analysts at small, value-oriented investment shops (hedge fund or PE) or individual value investors who invest full-time. 

 

For those of you in the industry, many of you will be familiar with the process of using “tearsheets” to track investments (current or prospective) for the purposes of analysis/monitoring, presentation to PMs/Investment Committees, and compliance/litigation.  These “tearsheets" are often just Excel files that have all sorts of information cut and pasted into them, and that have to be supplemented with documents stored on network drives (or who knows where) and whatever is in the analyst’s head.  The software I’ve developed is essentially intended to be a modern instantiation of the “tearsheet” concept that should optimize the analyst’s workflow and lower compliance costs (e.g., by making tape backups unnecessary).

 

For those of you who don’t work in the industry, you can basically envision the software as a dashboard for your investments that integrates with various productivity tools (e.g., Evernote and Box), automates data pulls from various sources based on user input, and has journaling/note-taking/media saving as a core functionality.  The plan is to also make it very easy to granularly set access/sharing controls for the information collected and generated.

 

Short list of features in the MVP:

 

-WYSIWYG editor that can be used for the creation of company overviews and notes (auto-population also possible for publicly traded companies)

-Journaling functionality that allows for the creation of a collection of time-stamped notes (using the WYSIWYG HTML editor)

-For publicly traded companies (US only for now), the pulling in and visualization of fundamentals data over 10 years

-Automated pulling of SEC filings and financials (for US traded companies, of course)

-News, alerts, and other data pulls from certain content providers based on user suggested queries

-Rich media saving (e.g., relevant videos from YouTube, CNBC, Bloomberg, etc.)

-Evernote integration (for those who use the service for notes and web clipping)

-Box integration (for file storage)

-Modularity allows for the possible integration with other productivity tools like Office/OneNote and Google Apps (if such integrations would be useful)

 

Archiving, snapshots, and sharing are features I’d implement if I find enough people who actually see this software as being useful.  And for credit-oriented investors who might be pulling info from data rooms such as Syndtrak or Intralinks, the plan would be to integrate with those data rooms to automate the pulling of credit agreements, amendments, notices, issuer financials, etc.

 

Again, I view this software as an MVP, and I’m at the point where I want to get some real feedback to see if it is at all interesting to target users.  If so, further development might be worth pursuing.  If not, well then that’s that.

 

If you’d be willing to participate as a beta tester, please PM me. 

 

Thanks.

[txlaw]

Bumping to see if I can get any more responses.