Financial Modeling company, do I need certification?

I just graduated from Florida State University with a degree in Finance. I have an aspiration to build my own Financial Forecasting services. I took an intense Financial Modeling and Forecasting class my senior year of college and did extremely well. I am very confident in my modeling skills utilizing Excel.

My question is to do this, is there a certain certification I need to pursue in order to build financial models for companies? Basically my company will provide entrepreneurs and business owners with financial forecasting for their business needs. Any recommendations/ideas are welcome! Thanks.

 

How many models have you built? Do you have industry/sector expertise related to financial modeling/forecasting? To what degree of complexity have you built your models? And what finance-related experience do you have? What value-add can you provide to the client from your professional network?

These are all things to consider before you enter something like this.

 
Best Response
bnewman:
I have yet to build a model for a company. The only models I have completed are projects given in school. The models were a DCF model and a leasing model. I also attended a Wall Street Prep seminar during my senior year of college.

Uhhh and this makes you competent enough to start your own business building models from scratch? Who will your clientele be? Why should they choose you when you aren't even a year out of school and your experience is summed up to one semester of 'intense modeling' at a state school and a seminar?

The only clientele who would give you a shot would be small business owners who are my parents age who need to create a pro forma balance sheet and income statement to give to the SBA so they can get their $200K SBA Loan and even then the bank lenders will just guide them through that. And all those pro formas are BS anyways and they just take their old BS and P&Ls and multiply those numbers by like 1.2 or something to show growth....

 

F*cking impressive. Must've been a really intense class, I say no need for certification (just use this post in your marketing materials). Go for it killa.

Under my tutelage, you will grow from boys to men. From men into gladiators. And from gladiators into SWANSONS.
 

Don't pay attention to Nobama. Fundamental models and forecasts are on average 99% accurate (and that's on the lower range too). If you are as good as you say you are (and clearly you are) you will be servicing multinational conglomerates and all of their corporate finance needs in approximately 1.75 years post-graduation. How did I get 1.75 years you ask? Easy, I built one of those highly accurate models and forecasted your future. These people are just jealous because they didn't come up with your idea first and most likely failed all of the intense modelling classes in college.

I might've spent too much time on that one...

Under my tutelage, you will grow from boys to men. From men into gladiators. And from gladiators into SWANSONS.
 
Bollinger:
Don't ever let people tell you can't do something. Go for it !

That's what I said too!

Under my tutelage, you will grow from boys to men. From men into gladiators. And from gladiators into SWANSONS.
 

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