[gpresot]

Who is this product for? The majority of expert Excel users in a company, do not know how to code. The majority of people that in a company are coding (for whatever aim) are never asked to produce business reports from excel. People who need the report (management) do not care how easy or complex it is to create it. Airtable is (somewhat) successful because it allowed a vast group of people with limited excel knowledge to create good looking reports with a simple visual interface. I think your app just gives people who know how to use (coders) it something they don't need (excel reports), or gives people who would need it (analysts, controllers, managers) something they would be scared to use (too much coding!!). So nobody is really going to bother management with the request to try it and buy it.

[d--b]

Yes I do realize that.

Yet, there is no good reason why expert excel users couldn't pick up some coding. I've seen several econ graduates teach themselves F# to be able to run reports. I've seen interns learning pretty complex VBA stuff. Young people know more and more some programming.

On the other hand, there is no good reason why developers shouldn't make business reports. Developers know where the data is, they know how to properly create reports that don't screw up the infrastructure. The only brake is that they're bad at frontend.

Maybe I'm being idealistic thinking that this tool could actually change how people manage the way they create reports. But I can't help thinking this is a good idea.

[cixinlui]

If you think that there is 'no good reason' why excel users couldn't pick up some coding, and 'no good reason' why developers shouldn't make business reports, you should think about those questions harder, and try to understand what the reason actually is, not worrying about whether it's good or bad. Your not understanding why people do something is not going to make them stop doing it.

[d--b]

My opinion is that people do what they do because they don't have the choice. As in because my tool is not on their radar. Obviously optimistic from me, but I am launching a product, I have to be!

[cixinlui]

I don't think it is correct that "they don't have the choice". Reliance on EUDAs in Excel is a well telegraphed problem for literally decades. There have been lots of attempts to solve it, whether by apps which seek to replace Excel, addins or things which work with Excel, programming interfaces, changes made by Microsoft to Excel itself, alternatives such as Jupyter. You needed to know about these and understand to what extent they succeeded and why they failed. If there's an opportunity for your tool, why is it different to all the other solutions?

[d--b]

The main motivation is because "I was there". I've worked 13 years building EUDAs in Excel, with all sorts of addins and what not. I've been very good at it. Being the only developer on successful trading desks for years. Creating tools used by everyone at one of the best hedge fund on the planet.

Literally everyone wants out of Excel but can't. Users are too addicted to the speed of iterations.

Hiring UI guys to make web apps instead of EUDAs is going to be orders of magnitude more expensive than working with Excel and EUDA developers.

I've listed all the alternatives over the years. None of them is spot on. I've spent 13 years asking myself: why the f is nobody building this?

[cixinlui]

Do you think that the alternatives failed because they weren't 'spot on'? Perhaps they failed because it's a much harder problem than they recognized when they started out.