Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Launch HN: Alinea (YC W21) – Invest in stocks you believe in

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 139 posts

Re: Launch HN: Alinea (YC W21) – Invest in stocks you believe in

#101

Post by allenu »

anamlakhani_ wrote: post #44
thiago_fm wrote: post #23

I think the premise of it is awesome, but it can only be wrong. I'd like some data that proves that the retail investors of your platform end up beating S&P for a start. Companies themselves struggle to even understand their own balance sheet. There are plenty of services which offer aggregated data about balance sheets with typical market formulas. Basically there's a huge industry of sell side analysts that often c…

I am not quite clear on what your question is. We simplify hard to find research into bite-sized formats so people don't have to sift through 100 page SEC filings and complex earnings reports. Currently, there's no way of having this information be readily accessible, especially for young people.

Simplifying the data into bite-sized formats is prone to bias since you have to essentially editorialize raw data, picking and choosing what information to bubble up into the reports and what to ignore. How do you plan on ensuring the integrity of this process?

Re: Launch HN: Alinea (YC W21) – Invest in stocks you believe in

#102

Post by klmadfejno »

airstrike wrote: post #79
anamlakhani_ wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Currently, we are seeing that retail investors aren't doing any research at all, especially young people are relying on social media and memes to make investment choices which can be dangerous. EBITDA is important and it's a hard concept to understand for those who aren't familiar with finance - that's why we offer digestible insights to make it accessible. Analyst reports are very long to sift through and most peopl…

> EBITDA is important and it's a hard concept to understand for those who aren't familiar with finance I disagree. The acronym is surely a mouthful, but you can summarize EBITDA as "approximately the same as cash flow generated by the company before paying any taxes, interest on loans or making capital investments like building a new plant or buying manufacturing equipment" which should be very intuitive for someone…

I don't think that's intuitive at all. If you lack any financial experience, merely looking at cash flow is going to be intimidating.

Re: Launch HN: Alinea (YC W21) – Invest in stocks you believe in

#103

Post by klmadfejno »

philip1209 wrote: post #52

Alinea is also a three-Michelin star restaurant in Chicago. I don't think names need to be 100% unique, but in the case of targeting wealthy investors - I'd assume they're one of the most likely groups of people to already think of "Alinea" as a restaurant. Plus, Alinea is involved heavily involved in tech via Tock.

A while back there was a series of puzzles from the mystery league to promote that restaurant. I enjoyed them very much. But I didn't know what the restaurant was, or where it was. I thought Alinea was the name of the puzzle team. I gave them that feedback.

Re: Launch HN: Alinea (YC W21) – Invest in stocks you believe in

#104

Post by kevsim »

tptacek wrote: post #94
kevsim wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does that really work though? What about mega companies with very common word names? Segment, Zoom, Stripe, etc.

It would be a bad idea to name your next tech company "Stripe" (or your next restaurant, for that matter; ew.)

Ha! I guess my point was that when those companies started up, searching for those terms was bound to result in some businesses popping up, though I'm sure they made the call that "hey, they're not in the payments/analytics/whatever space, so no worries"

Re: Launch HN: Alinea (YC W21) – Invest in stocks you believe in

#105

Post by [deleted] »

klmadfejno wrote: post #100
donnythecroc wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commoners!? Wow, just wow. You sound like exactly the kind of hedge fund snob wsb is taking down.

I don't see anything inaccurate or insulting about referring to people without financial education or experience as commoners in the context of finance.

[deleted]

Re: Launch HN: Alinea (YC W21) – Invest in stocks you believe in

#106

Post by klmadfejno »

I guess I would want to see the outcomes of the average user. If the median user underperforms the S&P 500, which they likely will, I feel it's misleading to say you're empowering people. The alternative, meme-y yolo stocks, are worse, but is this really better if the informed choice is highly likely to be sitting in an ETF?

> We also wanted to move away from a gamified experience which tends to cause stress and anxiety around investing - so we’ve gone as far as removing red and green from the app entirely

If you're taking material personal financial losses and you're not feeling stressed, I'd say there's a problem

Re: Launch HN: Alinea (YC W21) – Invest in stocks you believe in

#107

Post by cj »

patentatt wrote: post #73
cj wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There will be an incoming email shortly To the founders: ignore their email and consult your lawyer. Trademark infringement generally requires an element of consumer brand confusion. There is no way USPTO will see a restaurant and a stock trading app as likely to cause consumer confusion, as they are in completely different industries with absolutely no overlap. Sharing the same name doesn’t matter much given that…

Observation: several posters in this very thread have expressed confusion. Also, it's always bad form to give out legal advice on the internet.

> several posters in this very thread have expressed confusion

Consumer confusion within a specific industry. Like a food company using their name.

If this were a food delivery startup, there would be an issue. Since it's an stock trading app, very few trademark attorneys would see an issue with it.

And of course, consult your attorney, as mentioned in the original comment.

Re: Launch HN: Alinea (YC W21) – Invest in stocks you believe in

#108

Post by mpeg »

philip1209 wrote: post #52

Alinea is also a three-Michelin star restaurant in Chicago. I don't think names need to be 100% unique, but in the case of targeting wealthy investors - I'd assume they're one of the most likely groups of people to already think of "Alinea" as a restaurant. Plus, Alinea is involved heavily involved in tech via Tock.

It's also an extremely common word in Spanish meaning "align" – which in the context of their brand can be taken to mean to align oneself to a set of beliefs.

Re: Launch HN: Alinea (YC W21) – Invest in stocks you believe in

#109

Post by joelbluminator »

klmadfejno wrote: post #106

I guess I would want to see the outcomes of the average user. If the median user underperforms the S&P 500, which they likely will, I feel it's misleading to say you're empowering people. The alternative, meme-y yolo stocks, are worse, but is this really better if the informed choice is highly likely to be sitting in an ETF? > We also wanted to move away from a gamified experience which tends to cause stress and anxi…

Doesnt the median user earn the market return which we could say is S&P 500?

Re: Launch HN: Alinea (YC W21) – Invest in stocks you believe in

#110

Post by paulgb »

klmadfejno wrote: post #106

I guess I would want to see the outcomes of the average user. If the median user underperforms the S&P 500, which they likely will, I feel it's misleading to say you're empowering people. The alternative, meme-y yolo stocks, are worse, but is this really better if the informed choice is highly likely to be sitting in an ETF? > We also wanted to move away from a gamified experience which tends to cause stress and anxi…

> If you're taking material personal financial losses and you're not feeling stressed, I'd say there's a problem

I disagree. Markets tend to swing around but trend upwards on average. If you are emotionally tied to the big red or green number when you see when you open up your brokerage app, you're bound to make bad, emotionally-based decisions.

(Edit: I guess our disagreement might come down to the definition of "material". In the past few days of market turbulence I've had days where I was up or down by amounts that I would be devastated to have “fall out of my pocket”, but that I can shrug off because I know I can't time the market and I'm better off not trying.)

Post reply on HN