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Show HN: SheetHub – Turn your Excel formulas into APIs

7 points by mdluo 4y ago

nielsbosma 4y ago
Very cool! Excel is underappreciated as a programming environment. A friend of mine created https://www.molnify.com/ https://www.molnify.com/ that is something similar.
- mdluo 4y ago
  Thanks for the comment nielsbosma! I also considered building an Excel-based no-code/low-code platform as a future direction. But I just started this very recently and thought focusing on supporting API first is easier to validate the product idea. Besides, it's solving an actual problem I had when I worked for an insurance company a few years back where the pricing models were creted in Excel, and the devs needed to turn that into APIs, and there wasn't really good solutions at that time (https://github.com/formulajs/formulajs https://github.com/formulajs/formulajs was one, now it seems much better but at that time the number of fucntions it supports were not nearly enough)
twobitshifter 4y ago
I enjoyed the little animation when I tapped on formulas in the hero text. I think your home page could use some use-case examples. It’s clear how it works, but as an excel veteran an idea for using it didn’t leap out at me.
- mdluo 4y ago
  Awesome feedback twobitshifter, adding industrial use cases is on my task list now. One use case is to convert the insurance premium calculation logic defined in Excel into APIs and to be consumed by web/mobile apps to sell to end customers. In general, the people in the company who uses Excel most likely don't have software development skills, and the software developers are less likely to have time to fully understand the business logic in order to translate them accurately into code. That's how a product like SheetHub can bridge the gap, separate the responsibilities, and enables more rapid iterations on both sides. The audiences I was aiming for initially are developers like myself, that's why the languages are more technical. But you're right, I indeed need to broader the audience.
heresjohnny 4y ago
Terrific landing page. I’m probably not your target market, but I can imagine that this would do well. One remark I have is that it’s not obvious that the first gif is actually one of three. Perhaps it’s best to merge them into one so people don’t have to keep scrolling? Nice work!
- mdluo 4y ago
  Thanks for commenting heresjohnny! Yeah that's a good point, I do realise the "How it works" section needs some more work. Probably I will record a short video with voice-over and subtitles to demonstrate the whole use journey from start to end.

7 points by mdluo 4y ago

Very cool! Excel is underappreciated as a programming environment. A friend of mine created https://www.molnify.com/ https://www.molnify.com/ that is something similar.

mdluo 4y ago
Thanks for the comment nielsbosma! I also considered building an Excel-based no-code/low-code platform as a future direction. But I just started this very recently and thought focusing on supporting API first is easier to validate the product idea. Besides, it's solving an actual problem I had when I worked for an insurance company a few years back where the pricing models were creted in Excel, and the devs needed to turn that into APIs, and there wasn't really good solutions at that time (https://github.com/formulajs/formulajs https://github.com/formulajs/formulajs was one, now it seems much better but at that time the number of fucntions it supports were not nearly enough)

twobitshifter 4y ago

I enjoyed the little animation when I tapped on formulas in the hero text. I think your home page could use some use-case examples. It’s clear how it works, but as an excel veteran an idea for using it didn’t leap out at me.

mdluo 4y ago
Awesome feedback twobitshifter, adding industrial use cases is on my task list now. One use case is to convert the insurance premium calculation logic defined in Excel into APIs and to be consumed by web/mobile apps to sell to end customers. In general, the people in the company who uses Excel most likely don't have software development skills, and the software developers are less likely to have time to fully understand the business logic in order to translate them accurately into code. That's how a product like SheetHub can bridge the gap, separate the responsibilities, and enables more rapid iterations on both sides. The audiences I was aiming for initially are developers like myself, that's why the languages are more technical. But you're right, I indeed need to broader the audience.

heresjohnny 4y ago

Terrific landing page. I’m probably not your target market, but I can imagine that this would do well. One remark I have is that it’s not obvious that the first gif is actually one of three. Perhaps it’s best to merge them into one so people don’t have to keep scrolling? Nice work!

mdluo 4y ago
Thanks for commenting heresjohnny! Yeah that's a good point, I do realise the "How it works" section needs some more work. Probably I will record a short video with voice-over and subtitles to demonstrate the whole use journey from start to end.