3 ms·

Ask HN: What do you use Google Sheet or Excel for?

5 points by daolf 6y ago

It is often said that where there is a spreadsheet, there is a product waiting to be built. The more complex the spreadsheet, the more needed is the product.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
plumsempy 6y ago
I use Google Sheets a lot and I love it. From the common uses like task management to using it as mvp for a web app or a database for an mvp. What's interesting about Sheets is that the tables can be thought of as a database with columns and records, or a CSS grid and you can put buttons and everything on it. Currently I made a task queue for myself in sheets. There are a lot of things I want to do and I find out about these interesting stuff while in the middle of something else; so I just put the mew thing on the queue and forget about it. Works great. I also tag these tags in case I want to analyze them later. Finally, for fun, and also shameless plug, I made a Tetris using it. It even has animation when the tiles disappear. See it here: https://plumsempy.com/2018/09/17/tetris-on-google-sheets/ https://plumsempy.com/2018/09/17/tetris-on-google-sheets/ It is a very powerful tool.
nocubicles 6y ago
I use Excel when i'm developing SSAS analytics Cubes to test them. Also using it sometimes to get data from Odata feed. Maybe also some times to make some quick calculations of something.
ploika 6y ago
I think you'd find some fascinating answers on accounting, finance and actuarial forums, that might not turn up on HN. A few years ago I worked on a couple of different financial services projects that involved porting massive Excel-based jobs over to sturdier setups. Even the relatively simple spreadsheets (for people with a finance background) were long, complex projects that needed an RDBMS, an R or Python program, and a web app to do what Excel was just about handling on its own.
- huhnmonster 6y ago
  This. The stuff I am working on is mostly glorified ETL. Some sheets of course are user facing and will have a nice sheet inside the workbook where everything is summed up. Generally it looks like this: 1. Get data from a central source (data warehouse/other departments) 2. Transform/combine different sources etc. (mostly with pivot tables) 3. output to a sheet 4. add some sort of automation so it runs on its own the next time
DoreenMichele 6y ago
The insurance industry probably needs new products, but when I worked at Aflac, they did a lot in house, so I don't know if you could readily market it. They did tons in spreadsheets and I kept angling to improve stuff and actually got an award for a thing I did, and then had to harangue people to actually get it made available department-wide and then someone else took it over and promptly screwed up the formatting with the very first update. I left insurance years ago. My knowledge is not current. But if you want product ideas, insurance is an industry drowning in information overload and if you could figure out how to throw them a life preserver and get them to pay for it, you could potentially make a killing.

5 points by daolf 6y ago

It is often said that where there is a spreadsheet, there is a product waiting to be built. The more complex the spreadsheet, the more needed is the product.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

plumsempy 6y ago

I use Google Sheets a lot and I love it. From the common uses like task management to using it as mvp for a web app or a database for an mvp. What's interesting about Sheets is that the tables can be thought of as a database with columns and records, or a CSS grid and you can put buttons and everything on it. Currently I made a task queue for myself in sheets. There are a lot of things I want to do and I find out about these interesting stuff while in the middle of something else; so I just put the mew thing on the queue and forget about it. Works great. I also tag these tags in case I want to analyze them later. Finally, for fun, and also shameless plug, I made a Tetris using it. It even has animation when the tiles disappear. See it here: https://plumsempy.com/2018/09/17/tetris-on-google-sheets/ https://plumsempy.com/2018/09/17/tetris-on-google-sheets/ It is a very powerful tool.

nocubicles 6y ago

I use Excel when i'm developing SSAS analytics Cubes to test them. Also using it sometimes to get data from Odata feed. Maybe also some times to make some quick calculations of something.

ploika 6y ago

I think you'd find some fascinating answers on accounting, finance and actuarial forums, that might not turn up on HN. A few years ago I worked on a couple of different financial services projects that involved porting massive Excel-based jobs over to sturdier setups. Even the relatively simple spreadsheets (for people with a finance background) were long, complex projects that needed an RDBMS, an R or Python program, and a web app to do what Excel was just about handling on its own.

huhnmonster 6y ago
This. The stuff I am working on is mostly glorified ETL. Some sheets of course are user facing and will have a nice sheet inside the workbook where everything is summed up. Generally it looks like this: 1. Get data from a central source (data warehouse/other departments) 2. Transform/combine different sources etc. (mostly with pivot tables) 3. output to a sheet 4. add some sort of automation so it runs on its own the next time

DoreenMichele 6y ago

The insurance industry probably needs new products, but when I worked at Aflac, they did a lot in house, so I don't know if you could readily market it. They did tons in spreadsheets and I kept angling to improve stuff and actually got an award for a thing I did, and then had to harangue people to actually get it made available department-wide and then someone else took it over and promptly screwed up the formatting with the very first update. I left insurance years ago. My knowledge is not current. But if you want product ideas, insurance is an industry drowning in information overload and if you could figure out how to throw them a life preserver and get them to pay for it, you could potentially make a killing.