u/Mingus10

For the past year my co-founder and I have been building Openbook Analytics, a stock research and portfolio analytics platform for UK retail investors.

We weren't satisfied with the tools out there for retail investors, so we built Openbook Analytics to be a clean, simple way to find and analyse stocks. 

Every stock gets scored across factors like growth, value, momentum and profitability, with a separate risk read based on volatility, solvency, operational quality and size. 

What's there so far:

Stock Analysis. Every UK and US stock & ETF, getting OEICs and Mutual Funds soon.

Stock screener. Filter by the factors you care about, or a blend of them.

Portfolio tracker & analysis. Beyond holdings, it shows your factor exposure, concentration risk, and what your portfolio is most sensitive to.

Market News. We write regularly on UK names and market themes.

There's also a stock-picking competition between users.

We're early, so I'd rather hear what's broken or missing now than in six months. Access is completely free for the next two weeks, no card needed, so you can use all the features properly before forming a view.

If you're a UK investor, I'd value any honest reaction. What's useful, what's not, and what would make you actually stay with Openbook Analytics.

Here's the link, we hope you like it:
https://www.openbookanalytics.com/

After 10 months of building, we finally got our first 4 paying users.

It is only £64 MRR, so obviously nothing crazy, but it felt like a massive moment.

Me and my brother are building openbook, a stock research and portfolio analytics platform for retail investors. The idea came from our own frustration with investing tools. Most of them are either too expensive, too complicated, or they just dump a load of data on you without helping you understand what actually matters.

We wanted to build something simpler. Stock scores, risk/reward scores, portfolio analytics, and less jargon.

We are now at 1,000+ monthly active users and recently launched a Founder paid tier. Four people upgraded, which was such a great feeling. Seeing strangers put their card in for something you built hits differently.

The biggest lesson so far is that we originally went after the wrong type of user.

At first, we focused heavily on students. It made sense at the time because we had university investment society partnerships, students were easy to reach, and lots of them were interested in investing. But interest is not the same as pain. A lot of students liked the idea, but they were not passionate enough yet and most did not have enough money invested to really need the product.

The real signal came when we looked at users who added a portfolio to openbook. Those users were 3x less likely to churn.

That changed how we thought about everything.

Instead of asking “how do we get more signups?”, we started asking “who already has a portfolio, where do they spend time online, and how do we find more of them?”

That pushed us more towards Reddit, investing forums, and X, rather than only focusing on student partnerships.

Another thing we got wrong was spending too much time on educational content. It felt useful, but it was not what made people come back. The people who retained were the ones using openbook to understand actual stocks and actual portfolios.

We also made the finals of young Scottish EDGE, one of Scotland’s biggest entrepreneurship competitions, which still feels surreal.

Still very early. The product is still rough in places. £64 MRR is tiny. But 1,000+ MAU, our first 4 paying users, and a much clearer idea of who actually retains feels like a proper signal.

Biggest takeaway so far: learn quickly. If something is not working, move quickly.

Web app here if anyone wants to try it, would appreciate any feedback:
https://www.openbookanalytics.com