Hedgex wins Rep. Brandon Gill’s 2025 Congressional App Challenge in Texas’s 26th District

When asked what inspired the creation of Hedgex, Tanish Chauhan said, “The idea for Hedgex came from watching people around me struggle with basic investing concepts. At my school, I helped over 100 DECA investment teams prepare for competitions, and I kept seeing the same confusion over and over. Students would ask questions like ‘what’s a P/E ratio’ or ‘when does the market close,’ and have no clue where to start. It wasn’t just students either. My friends would text me about stocks they heard about on social media, asking if they should buy without understanding anything about the company. Even my own mom came to me wanting to invest her savings, but felt completely lost by all the jargon and numbers. She’d tried reading articles online, but everything assumed you already knew the basics. Watching her get frustrated trying to understand what should be accessible information really hit me. I realized financial literacy isn’t just about knowing facts. It’s about having someone explain things in a way that actually makes sense, without talking down to you or overwhelming you with complexity. Every time I explained a concept to someone and saw that lightbulb moment, I wanted to scale that feeling.

“There’s this massive gap between people who understand investing and people who want to learn but don’t know where to start. YouTube videos are too scattered, books are too dense, and most apps assume you already have knowledge. I wanted to create something that held your hand through the entire journey, from absolute beginner to confident trader. Seeing my mom finally understand her first stock purchase and those DECA teams actually grasp what they were competing about showed me how much people genuinely want this knowledge. They just need it presented the right way. Hedgex became my answer to that gap.”