Stockhive…rational investing for avid investors
If you are a casual investor in Indian stocks, you probably use the stock tracking services provided by online banks or investment portals and find them adequate. But if you are a serious investor and you care for detailed investment analysis & forecasting and how that data is presented, you don’t have many options. I suggest you should check out Stockhive, which is a web based investment tool for people who are seriously into stock investing.
Stockhive is the creation of Yogi Kulkarni, a software developer and investor. Stockhive is heavily focused; it covers only stocks and nothing else (like mutual funds or debt instruments). It is not exactly a financial portal, but an investment decision making tool that works really well. Yogi dreams of building this into a community of avid investors. In fact, the name Stockhive draws inspiration from bees… and the idea that you can produce great results in a community of equals. The site is funded partly from Yogi’s own money and partly by seed capital from Ayatana Holdings & Thoughtworks.
When I saw Stockhive, my first reaction was- what is the need for this when you have fairly good investment portals like IndiaBulls, MoneyControl, Equitymaster et al? Yogi thinks that the investment tools on these portals are designed for the least common denominator and hence suffer from many shortcomings. For starters, the really good ones among those (specialized financial databases) cost a bomb (over 60K per year). Free sites like MoneyControl, ShareKhan, ICICI Direct, etc provide a lot of information but do a poor job of presenting the data. That’s because their main source of revenue is paid research reports & trading commissions and hence there is no incentive for them to do any better. The financial information they provide on their sites is there only to give an impression of a ‘complete’ package. As I am writing this review, I can understand Yogi’s argument and I think he has identified a unmet need in the stock investment space.
So what all can you do with Stockhive? You can create a free account and make a watchlist of the companies to track. The company’s financial data is presented in a very compact and intuitive manner. A detailed walkthrough of the financial capabilities is beyond the scope of this review. But something to note is the heavy attention to detail and the focus on usability and effective presentation of data. The interface is AJAXified to a large extent. Features planned in the next release include filters/queries for the shortlisted stocks, community features and portfolio tracking. Its future revenue model will be based on graded subscriptions plan with differential service levels. Stockhive currently has 800 users.
There is one aspect in which Stockhive could improve. I feel that a good product is a necessary but insufficient condition for a successful venture. It is equally important to market a product really well. In this regard, I find Stockhive’s homepage bare and minimalist. More content needs to show up there, to get a grip over first time website visitors. The idea is not to make it look like a financial portal but at the very least, give the impression of a live, kicking & responsive product. Somehow, I don’t get that feeling when I am on the current homepage.
Yogi Kulkarni on Sep 10, 2006
Amit,
Thanks for the post on Stockhive and the feedback about the homepage.
I think your broader message “that it takes more than a good product to make a successful venture” makes a lot of sense. My focus so far has been on creating a great product, and I probably have neglected the small (but important) things that would make it “complete”.
I hope to fix that over the next few weeks.
-Yogi
team@stockhive.com
Startups.in/India on Sep 11, 2006
Nice effort.
Not sure if it is just me but I find their “company suggest” feature (like google suggest) tad slow. Another thing that surprised me is that it doesn’t have a feature to lookup a symbol.
Yogi Kulkarni on Sep 11, 2006
Good points…. will fix these.
amit on Sep 11, 2006
Yogi,
The personal investment space has not been tounched upon by any web2.0 startup in india. Stockhive looks great for personal stock investments.
I wish somebody would make a personal web based (cool ajaxified one) expense tracker or something thereof. Integrating that with some Indian specific tax calculations etc stuff etc would make a lot of sense.
Just wanted to bring about this point in the discussion.
amit
mediangler>>Stockhive.. on Sep 12, 2006
[.]..“Yogi [Kulkarni founder] dreams of building this into a community of avid investors. In fact, the name Stockhive draws inspiration from bees… and the idea that
you can produce great results in a community of equals. The site is funded partly from Yogi’s own money and partly by seed capital from Ayatana Holdings & Thoughtworks“.
I picked up on this by way of webyantra one of the growing numbers of Indian start-up blogs that are bringing the sub-continent close tous. Cool convergence.
Not that i’ve got many millions to punt on stocks but if I had…. I’d have fancied going close to the source rather than using our own brokers. Now I can, if I could.
Looking forward to findng out more of what’s happening in far away places…[.]
premium-lucrative-investments on Sep 12, 2006
[.]..hive1.jpgIf you are a casual investor in Indian stocks, you probably use the stock tracking services provided by online banks or investment portals and find them adequate. But if you are a serious investor and you care for detailed …[.]
akshat choudhary on Sep 12, 2006
Hi Amit,
I am on my way to create the easiest expense tracker. Though I believe expense tracking by traditional mens is very painful. I have launched a product here in Bangalore which uses SMS to help you keep a track of your expenses.
You can check out more about it at http://www.inactiv.com. Right now the web solution is not ready but the mobile and the email module are live and kicking. Normally I limit my service to only Bangalore users(of which I have about a 100) but feel free to play around with it.
Will love to get your feedback.
Thanks
akshat
Ujj on Sep 13, 2006
great job Mr Yogi..am not any investor actually still in engineering school but I completely agree with Amit about the capture that your startup might be able to do..Also the idea to extend this to a web 2.o including protfolio tracking and community based counselling systems coulsd increase its utility..
on a more broader sense, I think your aim should be also to cover the kind of people who are new to investing. As you focus on only stocks, its only going to help and with the 2.0 aspect in place its going to benefit the newcomer a lot..
Good work really.
Ranjeet on Feb 2, 2007
An NRI can find more on investment in stocks and share market at http://www.nrirealtynews.com/invest-in-indian-equities.php
Personal finance news on Dec 12, 2007
“Free sites like MoneyControl, ShareKhan, ICICI Direct, etc provide a lot of information but do a poor job of presenting the data. That’s because their main source of revenue is paid research reports & trading commissions and hence there is no incentive for them to do any better” that are great sites
Financial Wizard on Dec 19, 2007
Is Stockhive just restricted to Indian Stocks?