3 ms·

Thanks for your insights. I am happy to hear that you see potential in the project. I have a gut feeling that there is a lot of analysts who use Excel for diff

Thanks for your insights. I am happy to hear that you see potential in the project. I have a gut feeling that there is a lot of analysts who use Excel for difficult and heavy computations and who don't want to learn programming but would love to structure their formulas in a more decent manner. > Users don't buy plugins in larger businesses, etc. I don't agree - take a look at https://www.think-cell.com/en/ https://www.think-cell.com/en/ they are a company providing add-ins used by big four. They have 350 000 users in 7500+ companies with a revenue of ~50-70 millions of euro per year. > The Venn-diagram between programming and Excel has no overlap imho I believe the overlap exists. IMO it's possible to teach Excel users some basic practices from programming (like code review, testing etc). We (I have a company with my friends) actually have created a project that allowed a company write formulas in a simple file which generated a fully functional webapp. They used version control and code review together with unit tests. This allowed analysts build a solution using their knowledge without the need to have programming skills. This is a different approach programming Formulas -> Web application, but I believe an approach programming Formulas -> Excel is also possible.

wjnc 11y ago
Funny you mention Thinkcell. Thinkcell is exactly the only smallish-supplier package I have ever seen as an allowed plugin to Excel. It entered the firm I was then working via people coming from consultancies and wanting to make graphs only Thinkcell can build. Bloomberg is the only other plugin I have seen, and Bloomberg is on another level. My point (while I wrote "don't buy" and "no overlap") of course being somewhat less strong. Even with "hardly ever buy" and "hardly any overlap", the sales of even a strong product is hard and needs thought up front. You can build this tool and build it well and then struggle hard on the B2B-sales.
- damian_r 11y ago
  Ok, now I see what you meant by "don't buy". I agree it's tough to sell such product to a big company (actually selling any product to enterprise without credibility - a lot of users or big users - is very tough). IMO if you are small and you want to succeed in selling such product you need to make smaller companies love your product first and then talk to the big guys. On the other hand I have spoken to Marcus (CEO and cofounder of Think-cell) about how they started and their product went viral quite fast and was used by one of the big four companies even at the early stage. I believe that if you hit the spot and build something that has a huge urgency in the market then even big fence in front of enterprise is not going to be your problem. Having said this, I agree that selling this product could be tough. It's not just adding value but it changes the way people work - and enterprise hates changes. The more time big company has to sacrifice to change employees habits, the harder it is for them to decide to buy the product even if it adds value long term.

wjnc 11y ago

Funny you mention Thinkcell. Thinkcell is exactly the only smallish-supplier package I have ever seen as an allowed plugin to Excel. It entered the firm I was then working via people coming from consultancies and wanting to make graphs only Thinkcell can build. Bloomberg is the only other plugin I have seen, and Bloomberg is on another level. My point (while I wrote "don't buy" and "no overlap") of course being somewhat less strong. Even with "hardly ever buy" and "hardly any overlap", the sales of even a strong product is hard and needs thought up front. You can build this tool and build it well and then struggle hard on the B2B-sales.

damian_r 11y ago
Ok, now I see what you meant by "don't buy". I agree it's tough to sell such product to a big company (actually selling any product to enterprise without credibility - a lot of users or big users - is very tough). IMO if you are small and you want to succeed in selling such product you need to make smaller companies love your product first and then talk to the big guys. On the other hand I have spoken to Marcus (CEO and cofounder of Think-cell) about how they started and their product went viral quite fast and was used by one of the big four companies even at the early stage. I believe that if you hit the spot and build something that has a huge urgency in the market then even big fence in front of enterprise is not going to be your problem. Having said this, I agree that selling this product could be tough. It's not just adding value but it changes the way people work - and enterprise hates changes. The more time big company has to sacrifice to change employees habits, the harder it is for them to decide to buy the product even if it adds value long term.