From Excel to Python: Why Indian Finance Needs a Wake-Up Call
How I escaped spreadsheet purgatory and started building tools that actually scale.
Hey there — I’m Krishna.
I used to live inside Excel.
Revenue models, cost breakdowns, pivot tables, waterfall charts… you name it, I dragged it across a spreadsheet at 2AM like my life depended on it. If you’re in finance, I know you’ve been there too.
It felt “efficient.” Until I discovered Python.
That was the day I realized I’d spent years doing **manually what I could have automated in 8 lines of code**.
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Why Finance in India Needs a Wake-Up Call
We’re still using 2005 tools to solve 2025 problems.
Finance teams in Indian startups, corporates, and family offices are:
- Drowning in Excel sheets
- Forecasting manually with outdated models
- Copy-pasting data between dashboards and emails
- Wasting hours fixing formula errors
And when someone says “AI,” they either:
- Think of ChatGPT making slides
- Or assume it’s only for PhDs at hedge funds
Meanwhile, your global counterparts are building pipelines. Automating workflows. Running backtests. Writing code to detect financial anomalies before they hit earnings calls.
We can’t afford to keep playing defense.
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The Python Shift
Here’s what I did *last week* using just Python:
- Pulled 5 years of daily data from NSE
- Cleaned and analyzed trends with `pandas`
- Built a backtest for a simple stock strategy
- Exported a visual report in Excel and PDF
No formulas. No guesswork. No copy-paste disasters.
Just logic + reproducible workflows + time saved.
This is the future of finance. Not dashboards. Not drag-and-drop BI toys.
Code. Real, working code.
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What is QuantML?
I built this newsletter for Indian finance professionals who want to:
- Upgrade from Excel to Python
- Understand AI/ML without the fluff
- Use real stock market and FP&A data
- Build tools that actually make work easier
Whether you’re in FP&A, equity research, corporate finance, or trading — this is for you.
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🛠 What You’ll Get Here
Every week, I’ll share:
- Code tutorials (Python, ML, GPT)
- Real-world finance projects
- Stock market backtests
- Forecasting models
- Practical tools, not hype
No motivational quotes. No AI grift. No sales pitches.
Just practical content, built for finance nerds in India.
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Coming Next Week:
AI/ML in Finance: Hype, Hope, and What Actually Works”
We’ll break down which AI tools actually help — and which are just buzzword traps in a pitch deck.
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Thanks for subscribing.
If you like this, share it with a colleague who’s still stuck doing everything manually.
Let’s fix finance. One script at a time.
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quantml.in
🐦 [@QuantML](https://twitter.com/QuantML)
📈 LinkedIn: [QuantML](https://linkedin.com/company/quantml)