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> “Can we get away with just doing this in a spreadsheet?” he said. Realistically you can do pretty much everything a startup or small business needs in a spre

> “Can we get away with just doing this in a spreadsheet?” he said. Realistically you can do pretty much everything a startup or small business needs in a spreadsheet. Buying specialized software at that scale is a nice to have.

mrsilencedogood 3y ago
I read this as "vitamins vs painkiller" analogy. People forget to take their vitamins all the time, and if it's expensive vs the perceived (sometimes vague) ROI, then it's going to be the first to be cut. Versus... people do NOT forget to take their painkillers and nobody is looking too hard at how much ibuprofen costs (beyond comparing costs... they're gonna buy it regardless).
- dan_quixote 3y ago
  Let's also keep in mind that vitamins as supplement pills are mostly useless, we all mostly know this, yet we all mostly buy them anyway. Maybe this idea is already wrapped up in your "perceived ROI" comment...
  - geodel 3y ago
    Agree. I buy it all the time. And its mostly assuaging my psyche that "Hey, I am doing something to take care of my health."
geodel 3y ago
Buying specialized software and buying latte. To me this seems part of same trend: You deserve it, You are worth it, Why not? This is kinda opposite of old thrifty lifestyle: starting up early, making own coffee, doing speadsheets and all.
- timeon 3y ago
  > You deserve it It is just latte. Also you do not need to start early just to make <whatever> coffee.
  - geodel 3y ago
    Well popular excuse we have when stopping to get coffee at a shop/drivethru is that we are running late. Just implying no time to make coffee/breakfast at home. > It is just latte. Maybe you deserve Ferrari. However for lot of us, "deserve" is used for innumerable trivial/unnecessary things in life.
ben_w 3y ago
Technically true, but spreadsheets are also very easy to accidentally mess up. Yesterday I discovered my personal finances spreadsheet was giving me a total that was wrong by about 10% because I'd forgotten to update which fields it was summing over. Nothing relied on this sum so no harm done this time, but oh boy do I have slightly[0] more sympathy for the news stories where billionaires accidentally loose track of one hundred million. Get proper accountancy software if it's important; a spreadsheet will lead to tears. [0] but only when they're being asked about some asset by a journalist or on twitter etc. and not when they make this mistake on taxes, because they should be getting professional help with taxes well before becoming a billionaire.
- dghlsakjg 3y ago
  > Get proper accountancy software if it's important; a spreadsheet will lead to tears. The irony being that once you reach a certain scale, the accountant you hire will be using... a spreadsheet.
- geodel 3y ago
  True. I guess question here would be : Should a reasonably priced one time license cover this requirement for accounting software or a perennial subscription is only way to go
- alt227 3y ago
  Yeah, and subscribing to SaaS vendors is a fine way to run yoiur business until they, or the cloud they run on, goes down.

mrsilencedogood 3y ago

I read this as "vitamins vs painkiller" analogy. People forget to take their vitamins all the time, and if it's expensive vs the perceived (sometimes vague) ROI, then it's going to be the first to be cut. Versus... people do NOT forget to take their painkillers and nobody is looking too hard at how much ibuprofen costs (beyond comparing costs... they're gonna buy it regardless).

dan_quixote 3y ago
Let's also keep in mind that vitamins as supplement pills are mostly useless, we all mostly know this, yet we all mostly buy them anyway. Maybe this idea is already wrapped up in your "perceived ROI" comment...
- geodel 3y ago
  Agree. I buy it all the time. And its mostly assuaging my psyche that "Hey, I am doing something to take care of my health."

geodel 3y ago

Buying specialized software and buying latte. To me this seems part of same trend: You deserve it, You are worth it, Why not? This is kinda opposite of old thrifty lifestyle: starting up early, making own coffee, doing speadsheets and all.

timeon 3y ago
> You deserve it It is just latte. Also you do not need to start early just to make <whatever> coffee.
- geodel 3y ago
  Well popular excuse we have when stopping to get coffee at a shop/drivethru is that we are running late. Just implying no time to make coffee/breakfast at home. > It is just latte. Maybe you deserve Ferrari. However for lot of us, "deserve" is used for innumerable trivial/unnecessary things in life.

ben_w 3y ago

Technically true, but spreadsheets are also very easy to accidentally mess up. Yesterday I discovered my personal finances spreadsheet was giving me a total that was wrong by about 10% because I'd forgotten to update which fields it was summing over. Nothing relied on this sum so no harm done this time, but oh boy do I have slightly[0] more sympathy for the news stories where billionaires accidentally loose track of one hundred million. Get proper accountancy software if it's important; a spreadsheet will lead to tears. [0] but only when they're being asked about some asset by a journalist or on twitter etc. and not when they make this mistake on taxes, because they should be getting professional help with taxes well before becoming a billionaire.

dghlsakjg 3y ago
> Get proper accountancy software if it's important; a spreadsheet will lead to tears. The irony being that once you reach a certain scale, the accountant you hire will be using... a spreadsheet.
geodel 3y ago
True. I guess question here would be : Should a reasonably priced one time license cover this requirement for accounting software or a perennial subscription is only way to go
alt227 3y ago
Yeah, and subscribing to SaaS vendors is a fine way to run yoiur business until they, or the cloud they run on, goes down.