[feral]

I really think businesses would benefit from using tools like this to do their planning.

Just today, making LTV projections, I wanted something like this. I considered making a model in Bugs/Stan or Python or something, because my spreadsheet is just giving me point estimates, and there's a lot of variability. But that's a lot of work. Something like this would be great.

Feedback, meant constructively, because I believe in what you're building towards:

I have no idea what 'Actuals' means.

It took me a while to figure out 'does this do what I want, or not?' - maybe you're trying to make it less 'statsy/scary' to business users - but I wonder if you should make sure you don't consequentially miss people who actually know what they are looking for.

Its frustrating to click a 'Download' CTA and get hit with a webform - you've got my attention now, but I've no idea whether this is a real thing or a painted door - I don't want to queue, its not an exclusive social network, its a tool I might take a chance on learning - so I'll be bouncing away, even though I might be in your target audience. Maybe I'm just busy :)

"THE SPREADSHEET MODELING TOOL" - doesn't help me - all spreadsheets are modeling tools. 'Statistical' or 'advanced' or 'probabilistic' would let me know this is what I'm looking for here; again, I get there's a tradeoff with scaring away non-sophisticated users - but I'd bias towards getting people who know what they are looking for signed up.

[yura_invrea]

feral, thank you very much for your feedback!

>> Just today, making LTV projections, I wanted something like this.

Cool!

>> I have no idea what 'Actuals' means.

This is a way to make an observation. Like OBSERVE in Venture/Anglican (probabilistic programming languages, in Stan it is similar).

We decided to call it ACTUAL, because in accounting and similar fields people often call an observation (known data) an actual.

>> Its frustrating to click a 'Download' CTA and get hit with a webform

If you have already filled the form, I will send you a download link now. If not, please, feel free to fill, and I will send it soon (or tomorrow, we are UK-based).

We just try to track our early users, since it is still very early alpha.

>> "THE SPREADSHEET MODELING TOOL" ...

Good point and useful feedback, thank you! We will discuss it.

[mbesto]

> I have no idea what 'Actuals' means.

You're probably not the audience for a tool like this if you're asking this question. (no offense)

[feral]

Its a totally reasonable decision to target an audience, that I might fall outside.

My primary thrust is neither the 'Actuals' copy on the landing page, nor the 'Actuals' explainer video explain the term. (OP has explained it elsewhere on this page, thanks!)

Secondarily, I wonder whether this should be targeted exclusively to accountancy folks (which I'm not) or also Data Science/ Statsy folks (which I am, and who are increasingly helping high tech companies with their financial modeling).

The latter group is definitely a smaller niche, but might have more of an awareness/interest in what Invrea is doing; maybe not, but if I had to guess, I'd say there's a big customer education challenge targeting accountancy folks.

[asimuvPR]

Maybe you could explain or provide a link to the definition? He might know what it is under a different term.

[yura_invrea]

This is a term used in accounting and so on. Firstly, there is a company budget plan, and then each month (or week, or so on), _actuals_ are being incorporated to the plan.

See, here, e.g., under the Noun section: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/actual

Usually we call it an observation, and it is exactly OBSERVE command in probabilistic programming languages like Venture/Anglican, but in our plugin we have decided to try business-(accounting-)related terminology.

[asimuvPR]

Thank you.