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Show HN: Excel Sensitivity Analysis Tool

148 pointsby Lukas1994over 5 years ago

9 comments

refrigeratorover 5 years ago
Hi folks! Lukas (Lukas1994) and I built this.<p>If you have a spreadsheet model, it lets you answer questions like &quot;Which variable in my model is the most important?&quot; and &quot;If I underestimate X by 10%, what&#x27;s the effect on Y?&quot;.<p>Most models are built on assumptions and estimates — if you run a company, your financial model will probably include an assumption around your customer growth rate in the future. If you use this model to make decisions — &quot;How many people can we hire in Q4?&quot; — then it&#x27;s important to understand how sensitive these decisions are to your assumptions. It may turn out that overestimating your growth rate by 10% means you can only hire half as many people, in which case you&#x27;ll probably want to hire a bit more conservatively. This analysis is pretty cumbersome to do in spreadsheets.<p>More broadly, we think there should be a better way than Excel to crunch numbers and do modelling, and we&#x27;re trying to build it (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;causal.app" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;causal.app</a>). Would love to chat if this sounds interesting: taimur@causal.app :)
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omarhaneefover 5 years ago
Hi Lukas.<p>Thanks for making this.<p>I will ask the obvious question: how is this different from the sensitivity analysis provided in the built in data table functionality?<p>I&#x27;ll say a little more: I&#x27;ve seen people typically take a datatable and run it over a range of variables and then make some tornado plots.<p>I just googled around and there is a lot of noise but this one seems to have a clear explanation of what I mean:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.f1f9.com&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2019&#x2F;05&#x2F;F1F9_TornadoCharts_EBook_03a.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.f1f9.com&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2019&#x2F;05&#x2F;F1F9_Tornado...</a>
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ricksunnyover 5 years ago
In fact there is an example of this kind of sensitivity analysis tool already offered at <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.getguesstimate.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.getguesstimate.com</a> (not my venture, but a friend’s). It’s like a spreadsheet with uncertainty and sensitivity analysis weaved in throughout.
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pgtover 5 years ago
Also: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sheetless.io&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sheetless.io&#x2F;</a><p>Relevant to understanding causality in systems: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Twelve_leverage_points" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Twelve_leverage_points</a>
zozbot234over 5 years ago
I don&#x27;t want to dismiss this out of hand, but what does it do that the Excel Solver doesn&#x27;t? Excel, LibreOffice Calc etc. are <i>very</i> comprehensive tools, that include a lot of stuff beyond the basics everyone is familiar with.
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omega3over 5 years ago
Does it cover a different use case compared to Palisade @Risk?
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warpechover 5 years ago
Congratulations on launching!<p>I tried sending an email the the address given in your website, but my message bounced back with an error:<p>&quot;&lt;hi@casual.app&gt;: Host or domain name not found. Name service error for name=casual.app type=A: Host not found&quot;
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folliover 5 years ago
Cool idea! If I may ask: how do you plan on monetizing this?
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throwawayhhakdlover 5 years ago
Do you have a sense for how many people are competent modelers enough to use a tool like this- AND who work primarily in excel? My instinct would be to say small, but it is excel, and I suppose it wouldn’t be the craziest thing I’ve heard to learn otherwise