[ibimage==40450==Large==none==self==ibimage_align-center]
Since starting financial software company YCharts in 2010, CEO Shawn Carpenter and CTO Ara Anjargolian have been dreaming of launching an insanely data-heavy financial dashboard that solves all issues of all financial institutions. Well, this summer they released it: YCharts’ Dashboard, the most advanced financial dashboard around.
“I’ve wanted to build this dashboard since day one, but we had to build up the data platform first where the dashboard would make sense,” Carpenter said. “Finally, we had enough info - and our users have wanted it.”
The Dashboard product is endlessly customizable, so personalized in fact that no two users’ Dashboards likely have exactly the same information. Since each user cares about different companies, economic indicators and indices, the data that goes into a user’s decision-making should be different too. “There is really no limit to the Dashboard customization,” Carpenter said.
The Dashboard’s customization feature was one that was requested by a number of the 1 million users on the YCharts site each month. YCharts often takes advantage of the high volume of users on its site each month by listening closely to feedback from customers across the industry.
“We have users across almost every financial institution already,” Carpenter said. “Our user is anyone who needs to understand what is going on in the world as far as the macro-environment. We are very quickly helping them build up an understanding of any industry.”
With so many individuals subscribing to the YCharts Lite package and financial professionals buying the YCharts Professional subscription, the startup was not short on feedback. To YCharts, it was just a matter of logging those requests and putting the feedback into action.
“It’s great that we have that many users in the system because we don’t have to guess about the product,” Carpenter said. “The users really drive how it is built; their feedback helps us be right more often than not.”
And it’s clear that YCharts really is getting it right most of the time: they have been growing rapidly over the past four years and will be “hiring in Chicago aggressively over the next 12 months,” Carpenter said. Many of those hires will be for account executive positions and entry level sales positions since more and more of YCharts’ sales are coming through in-bound channels. Previously, YCharts relied on partnerships with companies like Forbes and Yahoo Finance to get traffic.
Carpenter also said YCharts might be raising another funding round over the next six to 12 months on top of the $8.7 million already raised “to make sure we are pushing as fast as we can.” Morningstar, Hyde Park Angels and I2A Fund are existing investors.
With Dashboard successfully out of the gate this summer and more hiring, funding and product expansion on the horizon, YCharts is already a front-runner fin tech company in Chicago.
Have a tip for us or know of a company that deserves coverage? Email us via [email protected]
