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Guesstimate – A Spreadsheet for things that aren't certain

getguesstimate.com

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Re: Guesstimate – A Spreadsheet for things that aren't certain

#41

Post by social_quotient »

andrei_says_ wrote: post #40
ozgooen wrote: post #14

Cofounder Here: Happy to see this on hnews again. Update: Matthew (the other cofounder) and I got Guesstimate to a stage we were happy with. After a good amount of work it seemed like several customers were pretty happy with it, but there weren't many obvious ways of making a ton more money on it, and we ran out of many of the most requested/obvious improvements. We're keeping it running, but it's not getting much mo…

I’ve used the product to “guesstimate” a few things like quality of life with a higher paying job with longer commute (not worth it!) and starting a business. Love how intuitive and clean the UI is and how it puts probability estimation at my fingertips, in simple, human language. Thank you!

Curious what was the result specifics?

Re: Guesstimate – A Spreadsheet for things that aren't certain

#42

Post by social_quotient »

stanislavb wrote: post #39
ozgooen wrote: post #14

Cofounder Here: Happy to see this on hnews again. Update: Matthew (the other cofounder) and I got Guesstimate to a stage we were happy with. After a good amount of work it seemed like several customers were pretty happy with it, but there weren't many obvious ways of making a ton more money on it, and we ran out of many of the most requested/obvious improvements. We're keeping it running, but it's not getting much mo…

Seems like you've put some solid work here. Who would you name your top competitors?

Maybe kaggle but different?

Re: Guesstimate – A Spreadsheet for things that aren't certain

#43

Post by hliyan »

knight17 wrote: post #34
hliyan wrote: post #25

Is there a regular spreadsheet product that allows cells to have explicit names and descriptions like this? (in addition to the value)

Excel has named cell ranges. So instead of =A5*A6 you could have =interest*principal You can create them easily too -- can name the individually, can assign names from existing tables and so on. You can have constants too, that is, they don't have to point to any cell [1]. It is a godsend when working with bigger tables having lots of formulas. [1] https://www.ablebits.com/office-addins-blog/2017/07/11/excel... [2] h…

Yes, but I was hoping for a feature where the name is displayed on the interface...

Re: Guesstimate – A Spreadsheet for things that aren't certain

#47

Post by smallnamespace »

ozgooen wrote: post #14

Cofounder Here: Happy to see this on hnews again. Update: Matthew (the other cofounder) and I got Guesstimate to a stage we were happy with. After a good amount of work it seemed like several customers were pretty happy with it, but there weren't many obvious ways of making a ton more money on it, and we ran out of many of the most requested/obvious improvements. We're keeping it running, but it's not getting much mo…

Are you able to apply global correlations to all the variates?

One of the triggers for the financial crisis in '08 was that the Monte Carlo pricers assumed the various risks were much less correlated than they actually were.

For example, they largely assumed that it was unlikely for many mortgages or underlying MBS securities to simultaneously default (low correlation). This is how many AAA rated CDO securities ended up trading at 50%+ discounts.

IMHO, any multivariate Monte Carlo analysis that doesn't show your sensitivity to correlation is essentially useless, since your answers may change completely.

In the second example model (https://www.getguesstimate.com/models/316), Fermi estimation for startups, you would expect many of the inputs (deals at Series A, B, C, amount raised per deal) in real life to be highly correlated with each other since they all depend on 'how well is VC in general doing right now?'

The final estimate of 'Capital Lost in Failed Cos from VC' has a range of 22B to 39B, this seems way too low. The amount of VC money lost during a crisis (like in '01) can easily be an order of magnitude more.

Re: Guesstimate – A Spreadsheet for things that aren't certain

#48

Post by DINKDINK »

smallnamespace wrote: post #47
ozgooen wrote: post #14

Cofounder Here: Happy to see this on hnews again. Update: Matthew (the other cofounder) and I got Guesstimate to a stage we were happy with. After a good amount of work it seemed like several customers were pretty happy with it, but there weren't many obvious ways of making a ton more money on it, and we ran out of many of the most requested/obvious improvements. We're keeping it running, but it's not getting much mo…

Are you able to apply global correlations to all the variates? One of the triggers for the financial crisis in '08 was that the Monte Carlo pricers assumed the various risks were much less correlated than they actually were. For example, they largely assumed that it was unlikely for many mortgages or underlying MBS securities to simultaneously default (low correlation). This is how many AAA rated CDO securities ended…

>any multivariate Monte Carlo analysis that doesn't show your sensitivity to correlation is essentially useless

This rational is why this tool shouldn't be used for anything consequential -- like business decisions that can sink you company.

Re: Guesstimate – A Spreadsheet for things that aren't certain

#50

Post by chrispsn »

hliyan wrote: post #43
knight17 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excel has named cell ranges. So instead of =A5*A6 you could have =interest*principal You can create them easily too -- can name the individually, can assign names from existing tables and so on. You can have constants too, that is, they don't have to point to any cell [1]. It is a godsend when working with bigger tables having lots of formulas. [1] https://www.ablebits.com/office-addins-blog/2017/07/11/excel... [2] h…

Yes, but I was hoping for a feature where the name is displayed on the interface...

Mesh? www.mesh-spreadsheet.com. Toggle name visibility for a cell with the F3 key.
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