Introduction to Financial Modeling for Beginners (Udemy.com)
Learn how to build your first financial models in Excel from scratch.
Created by: Symon He
Last updated July 2023
What you will learn
- Understand the essentials of financial modeling using Excel
- Understand the financial modeling process
- Be able to build their first financial forecast model in Excel
- Be able to build their first financial reporting model in Excel
- Be able to build their first financial decision making model in Excel
- Be proficient in financial model design
- Understand core concepts in finance
- Know the business of lemonade stands inside out!
How it compares
Against the other 376 rated Udemy courses in Finance & Accounting on CourseDuck:
- Rating4.4 out of 5higher than 28% of them
- Reviews3,014#50 of 377 by number of reviews
- Length6.2 hourslonger than 59% of them
- Last updatedJuly 2023earlier than 71% of them
Course Description
Instructor Symon He hosts near daily LIVE office hours on TikTok 10:30PM PDT. Find him @SymonHe.
Arun Mohan - 5 Stars
“The experience was an enlightening one as I was a novice in Finance and Excel and this Class was best fit for me. I could understand everything as the instructor took time to explain at a good pace and patiently introduced excel as well as accounting methods. Looking forward to getting acquainted with more of Finance.”
Ethan Wong - 5 Stars
“The course was designed very well, with clear explanations of the topic matter. Having the instructor show you everything step-by-step was very useful for learning. Also, having the excel spreadsheets to practice on was perhaps the most useful thing for me.”
There are THREE things you need to do in order to learn financial modeling:
1. You need to understand the key concepts of Finance
2. You need to understand the relevant features & techniques in Excel
3. You need to be able to put both of those together in practice.
You're reading this because you have an interest in learning financial modeling for your work or a desire to get into corporate finance.
We did too many years ago.
But when we first started out, we wasted a lot of time and effort learning useless and unnecessary information and techniques.
It didn't have to be as painful and time-consuming as it was.
That's why we created this course, so you can avoid making the same mistakes that we made and learn financial modeling fast with no wasted effort.
You DON’T have to learn everything about finance or Excel to become proficient at financial modeling.
You just need to know the RIGHT concepts and the RIGHT tools in each to get started.
Now why should you learn from us?
I’m proud to say that I have an MBA from Stanford University and have worked on many commercial real estate properties across a dozen asset types in multiple markets. I even helped create the underwriting standards for a 2000-store private restaurant chain, helping them open new locations around the world.
And as a licensed broker and real estate consultant, I've helped many private clients with locating, evaluating, and structuring investment opportunities including multi-million dollar commercial property acquisitions and 1031 exchanges.
My co-instructor, Brandon Young, has a Masters in Real Estate Finance & Development from the University of North Carolina Charlotte as well as a Masters in Finance from Tulane University. He has over a decade of combined financial and real estate experience, including acquisitions and development.
We've been living and breathing in financial models for practically our entire careers.
Andrés Soto - 5 Stars
“A really good course for beginners. Right now I understand everything.”
Henry Taatjes - 5 Stars
"great instructors, great content”
Brady Burba - 5 Stars
“After reaching this point I see the training is going deeper into Excel and how to utilize the many tools and formulas Excel offers, without training on topics that are not relevant to my needs. Thank you!”
What if I don't have any Finance or Excel background?
No worries! This is an introductory course and it assumes ZERO prior knowledge or experience. It is condensed because we've curated only the most relevant and useful topics to get you going fast.
What will I be able to do after I take your course?
After taking our course, you will be:
• Able to confidently speak to key finance, accounting, and modeling concepts
• Able to use over a dozen of the most useful Excel features & techniques
• Able to construct three distinct financial models from scratch
What’s with the lemonade stand?
Learning Excel or finance on their own is tough enough, and learning them at the same time can be extra challenging. To further muddy the waters by asking students to learn an arbitrary business model would be unnecessarily confusing and a waste of time.
But even with a simple business model such as a lemonade stand, you'll be surprised by how complex and sophisticated the analysis can become.
What’s holding you back?
Are you afraid this course won’t work? I promise you it will.
Are you afraid this course will work and you’ll actually have to start investing? I think that’s a pretty good problem to have.
Are you afraid it will take time and effort? It will. Real estate isn’t an easy business, if it was everyone would do it. But if you put in the work I promise you’ll see results.
Best of all, there is absolutely ZERO risk. Udemy gives you a 30-day money back guarantee to ensure you get what you pay for.
So go ahead, sign up and let’s get to work right away!
Instructor Details
- 4.4 Rating
3,014 Reviews
Symon He
Symon He is the author of the Rental Property Investing QuickStart Guide, Amazon best-seller Real Estate Investing QuickStart Guide, and the co-author of Airbnb for Dummies, all available now on Amazon and in bookstores throughout North America.
He is also co-founder of LearnBNB, a leading online educational destination for all things Airbnb hosting and short-term rentals. His works have been cited or featured on the Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Forbes, CNBC, Entrepreneur, and SKIFT. Through his training and coaching programs, he has worked directly with thousands of aspiring Airbnb hosts to jumpstart their short term rental journeys. His training programs have been featured by prominent third-party partners, including a joint venture with RichDad.
As a licensed broker, Symon previously helped private real estate investors with their acquisitions and deal structuring. As an angel investor, he also advises and invests in early stage startups.
Previously, Symon worked in several corporate real estate and finance roles at large private and Fortune 80 companies, including at a private equity investment firm covering a wide range of commercial real estate acquisitions in the western USA.
Symon received dual degrees in Computer Engineering and Economics with Honors from UC Irvine and an MBA from Stanford University.
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Reviews
By Shruti Jain on 2/8/2026
The AI assistance is really helpful because during this video I had a lot of questions which have been clarified with the help of AI assistance. The CAPM video is not there anymore in this course. I see that the next video directly is Weighted Average Cost of Capital. Please add the video for CAPM
By Peter Josh Romero on 7/28/2022
Overall, the course is good, especially doing the techniques and functions for excel for Financial Modelling. The only thing I would appreciate is explaining why you use the specific functions for certain areas such as SumIfs on additional equity calculation. I have some experience using excel, but not to the extent of this kind of analysis, therefore this course is also suitable as a refresher on excel techniques for aspiring analysts like me.
By Matias Castellanos on 4/11/2022
This course was great for someone like me with little to no experience in finance and excel. I learned a lot about both topics in a beginner level as advertised. You can tell there was a lot of thought put into how the students were going to interact with the excel files while following the lessons.
By Justin Perry on 11/15/2020
Great info!
By Martrica Allumns on 10/25/2020
I liked the pace and information. I am great at Excel, however I was still able to learn new tips.
By Jayant on 10/13/2020
Speaker speaks very fast. He should speak slow so that his words can be catched to understand what he speaks.
By Michael Imasuen on 10/12/2020
ok
By Tega Nathan Onakpoyeya on 9/11/2020
Makes determining investing values look easy to calculate
By Anurag Gupta on 8/19/2020
I have no knowledge about financial modeling and felt that the course should have started with introducing the very definition of the term 'financial modeling'.
Apart from this, i think the trainer needs to realize that the language and speed needs to be more layman-like and relatable for someone who is still an undergraduate. The rest is pretty good and presentable.
By Clement Ojediran on 8/12/2020
Yes
By Ajinkya Modak on 8/5/2020
The contents were useful to know the key conceptual understanding of the financial model.
By Daniel Du on 7/26/2020
It should be more detail, it is still a little bit hard to understand each step
Quality Score
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Overall Score : 88 / 100












