Over the past four years, Gary He (12), Russ Sobti (12), Michael Pham (12), and Abhi Rathore (12) have worked to build Fynking Analytics, an algorithm-based consulting app. But despite the eventual accolades earned by their end product, Fynking holds its humble beginnings in a freshman-year Spanish 3-4 classroom. 

“The origin story is quite epic, actually,” Gary He (12) said, with a wistful smile. “[Russ and I] got sent to the front office to get yelled at by the assistant principal because we were [messing] around in Profe Ludwig’s class. While we were waiting, Russ was like, ‘Gary, you’re into finance, right?’ I said “Yes, I am.” And he’s like ‘business idea.’ And he just pitched me Fynking.”

The original concept for Fynking was based on algorithmic trading, the use of a computer program with a defined set of instructions to continually trade stocks. However, the bright-eyed entrepreneurs soon realized the enormity of the task they sought to carry out.

“We thought that generating a market beating algorithm wouldn’t be that hard,” Sobti said. “It turns out, hedge fund people aren’t stupid—they know what they’re doing in their industry. Almost every significant advantage has already been discovered or [integrated into the stock market] by other people.”

Sobti and He then decided to shift their focus to another facet of the stock market: consulting. Instead of using an algorithm to directly interact with the stock market, the two decided to tailor their app to offer stock recommendations to users.

“We aimed to create a research app where we recommend certain stocks to users based on their risk portfolio,” Sobti said. “But since it was my first web app that I’d ever developed, I had a lot to learn.”

In March 2020, while Fynking was still in its prototyping phase, He and Sobti decided to enter it into Coolest Projects, a technology showcase focused on young engineers. The two put together a 10-minute pitch and drove to Anaheim. There, the two spent the day pitching to a panel of judges, then drove back to San Diego with a first-place finish in the web development category.

With this, Fynking was officially introduced to the world.

Sobti mainly played the part of a technical lead in Fynking, building a bulk of the actual algorithms involved with the program, while He focused on the operational aspect of the company, like development, marketing, and business organization. 

The two soon added Pham to the Fynking roster through an unassuming dispute, May 2020.

“Gary and I were debating about Tesla during APEC (which I was severely wrong on) and we started talking about stocks,” Pham said. “As we talked more, he introduced me to the possibility of joining Fynking.”

Before joining Fynking, Pham already had an established base of financial knowledge accrued through years of engagement in finance and algorithmic studies. 

“My dad introduced [stocks and finance] to me when I was younger,” Pham said. “I also like to read investing books and take a lot of inspiration from a bunch of different famous investing philosophers, like [George Soros].” 

Pham also had been contributing financial algorithmic work to Quantopian, a crowd-sourced hedge fund, since his freshman year.

Pham’s addition to the team fulfilled a role in Fynking that was badly needed.

“Mike was really able to fill in my technical gaps because he had a lot of the fundamental knowledge that I really lacked,” Sobti said. “He was able to not just create the financial algorithms, but also maintain business, finances, and projections.”

The three then set their eyes on The Young Entrepreneurs (TYE) Entrepreneurship Competition. In preparation, they also recruited classmate Abhi Rathore (12) to help with the market aspect of the company.

Preceding the actual competition date, TYE competitors participated in the Entrepreneur Academy—an eight-week course featuring lectures by various guest speakers in fields from basic financial literacy to specific marketing tactics. Here, the Fynking group fully fleshed out their business model by minimizing the running costs of the program to turn the highest profit.

And finally, the day of the competition came.

“It’s three rounds of competition, each with an individual panel of judges,” Pham said. “We won the final round and were congratulated there by the mayor, Todd Gloria, which was pretty cool, and moved onto the Global competition.”

The TYE Globals, taking place a couple of weeks after the initial round, drew competitors from other countries like Japan and India, broadening the opponents that Fynking was to face. Despite the group being unable to win any awards, this experience afforded them valuable confidence in their entrepreneurial abilities.

“For the first time, Mike, Gary, Abhi, and I realized that ‘hey, we could do this business thing,’” Sobti said. “We have the connections to make it happen; we have validation that we do know what we’re talking about. This could work.”

While Fynking entered a hiatus in late 2021 due to Fynking members’ busy schedules, the results of the project still impact them to this day.

Following the TYE Global competition, Sobti earned a summer internship at an independent wealth-management contractor while Pham has returned to the TYE program as an event coordinator lecturer for the economical development startup course. In addition, He and Sobti are also looking to soon launch Autoscribe, a free transcription service designed to aid students with lengthy online lectures. 

As for Fynking, its future is largely unknown.

“We shelved Fynking a couple of months ago as college apps and various things outside of school picked up,” Sobti said. “But our code is saved in a GitHub repository for when we decide to go forward with it again, maybe a couple years. But, I think we just all really worked well with each other and I’ve really enjoyed my time working with them all.”