Productizing an Excel Workflow within PitchBook for Investors

Translating an Excel modeling workflow into a self-service platform solution.

PROBLEM

Existing solution was time-consuming for investors

PitchBook’s Excel modeling tool was time-consuming for clients to understand and use due to its complexity accounting for multiple days of work to get a worthwhile output.

PROBLEM

Existing solution was time-consuming for investors

PitchBook’s Excel modeling tool was time-consuming for clients to understand and use due to its complexity accounting for multiple days of work to get a worthwhile output.

APPROACH

Reduce friction while preserving power

The experience wasn’t designed to simplify the workflow—it was to make common actions faster.

APPROACH

Reduce friction while preserving power

The experience wasn’t designed to simplify the workflow—it was to make common actions faster.

Designs

From Excel to Platform

From how users entered data, to how it was enriched, to how results were surfaced, each design decision was guided by the same principle: make the workflow easier without making it feel unfamiliar or constrained.

Improving the input flow without breaking familiarity

The original Excel workflow relied on 20+ inputs distributed across multiple tabs. In collaboration with quant analysts, I organized all required fields into a step by step flow to reduce cognitive load—while intentionally preserving an editable, table layout that aligned with users’ existing Excel mental models.

Before

After

Adding automation without compromising accuracy & flexibility

Quant stakeholders pushed to require more inputs to ensure accurate outputs. To reduce the resulting user burden, I proposed auto-population and collaborated with stakeholders to determine which fields could be pre-filled. All auto-populated values remained visible and manually editable, preserving flexibility and preventing users from feeling locked into system-generated data.

Unifying outputs to make cause-and-effect explicit

By consolidating fragmented Excel outputs into a single, structured view, the platform made cause-and-effect explicit—reducing context switching and allowing users to understand the impact of their inputs at a glance. Previously, users had to navigate across multiple Excel tabs and mentally reconstruct how inputs drove results.

Before