# Why I built SmartViewAI

I spent years telling people to track their portfolio properly, then realised I was asking them to do something the tools made genuinely hard.

- URL: https://pushpendra.info/articles/why-i-built-smartviewai
- Author: Pushpendra Singh
- Language: English
- Topics: smartviewai, founder, product

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I have an IT background. Ten years of building software before crypto was anything I talked
about publicly. So when I started teaching, I assumed the tooling problem was somebody else's.

It took a long time to accept that it was mine.

## The question I could not answer well

The question I got most often was not "which coin". It was some version of: *how do I know
where I actually stand?*

Someone holds a little on one exchange, a little on another, some in a wallet, and made a few
P2P trades along the way. They want one number. In India they also need that number in a form
that survives a tax filing. With the 1% TDS accounted for, and every transfer distinguished
from every sale.

My honest answer for years was a spreadsheet. Which is fine advice for the five percent of
people who will actually maintain one.

## What the existing tools got wrong for India

Most portfolio trackers are built for a US or European user. They assume bank rails that we do
not have, they do not understand P2P as a first-class way of getting rupees in and out, and they
treat tax as an export button rather than something structural.

The 30% rate and the no-set-off rule are not an edge case here. They change which trades are
worth making. A tool that treats tax as an afterthought is missing the part that matters most to
an Indian user.

## Building it was the education

I had explained exchange APIs on camera many times. Connecting to a dozen of them properly,
handling the ones that rate-limit you, reconciling a trade history that three different
exchanges report three different ways. That taught me more about how this industry actually
works than any amount of reading.

It also made me a better teacher. It is difficult to hand-wave through an explanation once you
have had to make the thing work.

## Why it matters for what I say here

I am not only someone with an audience. I run a product with paying customers, which means I see
the unglamorous parts: support tickets, failed payments, people who cannot complete a
verification step, the gap between what people say they want and what they use.

When I look at a project now, I look at it partly as someone who has tried to ship something in
this industry. That is a different lens from the one most commentary is written through, and I
think it is a more useful one.

If you want to see it, it is at [SmartViewAI](https://smartviewai.com). There is a free plan,
and I would rather you try it than take my word for it.

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Written by Pushpendra Singh, crypto educator and founder of SmartViewAI, Top Crypto Educator at
Consensus 2025. Not financial or tax advice. https://pushpendra.info