Introducing LCBM

As an investor juggling INR and USD daily, I found myself repeatedly performing mental currency conversions, which is inefficient and prone to errors, especially with large figures from prospectuses or market data. To solve this practical problem, I built LCBM, a simple Mac app that instantly converts between lakhs, crores, millions, and billions to save time. Hope this helps you too.

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1

Sometimes, the most valuable tools are the ones that solve a simple, recurring pain point you experience as a founder or investor, even if they don't seem "revolutionary".

2

Osborne built LCBM as a way to easily convert between INR lakhs/crores to USD millions/billions and back.

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It's a simple tool to solve a simple need. Lives in your mac menu bar, fetches currency rates live.

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Privacy and user trust are paramount, even for the simplest tools; a no-telemetry, no-login approach builds immediate credibility.

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Header image introducing LCBM to convert lakhs/crores to millions/billions with ease

If you’re just here for the app, download it here:

Download LCBM

I spend a fair bit of time looking at investment opportunities across two currencies. INR and USD.

Every week, I’m converting INR lakhs and crores to USD millions and billions. And then back again. Depending on who I’m talking to.

The math isn’t hard. At this point, I’ve memorised the rough math behind it. But sometimes (like in the This Week in Fintech newsletter, the exact value is important).

But doing it in my head multiple times? Not fun. Especially if a whole IPO prospectus is in INR millions/billions. PhonePe’s IPO prosectus was the trigger for me to build this app.

Moreover, some numbers don’t seem right when I do the mental math - like converting the total bank deposits from INR lakhs crores to USD billions - was I correct in converting?

So I built one.

Meet LCBM 👋

Convert between Lakhs, Crores, Billions, Millions with ease. That’s it. That’s the whole app.

It’s a mac menu bar app. Click it, type your number, pick your currency and unit. Done. Instant conversion.

How to use it:

Download the .zip file from the link above
Unsip the file
Copy and paste or drag and drop the .app file to the Applications folder on your mac.
Open the app, and you’ll see the ”₹” icon in your mac menu bar. Click it when you want to convert.

Is it revolutionary? No. Does it save me 15 seconds every single time I need to convert something? Absolutely.

Sometimes you just need to build the thing for yourself.

Note: The app does not ring home. No telemetry is collected. No login required. We have no branches.

Onward.