Struggling with maintaining 25 versions of financial projection spreadsheets for a tiered SKU based SaaS startup. I decided to spin this up as quickly as possible (and learn a little AngularJS along the way).
The result - after ~30 hours it's usable enough to show. Obviously needs more flexibility around the variety of revenue models and expense categories. But really it's just for rough estimates at this point.
As a piece of technology, this is really cool. But I guess I don't get how it's different from a nice Excel model. How is it that this allows you to capture 25 different use cases in a way that the a spreadsheet can't?
- Spreadsheets are prone to fat-fingering and messing up formulas. For example, if you built a spreadsheet with three product SKU's and wanted to add a fourth, it's not so easy. Especially if you have visualizations tied to specific ranges of cells, etc. With this app I can validate data once and not worry about some random missing formula screwing it up down the road.
- When creating models for comparison the typical pattern is Save As -> New. Before you know it, you've got 8 or 10 different spreadsheets with different variations on the numbers. Now add a new expense category to the model in spreadsheet #10. If you want to compare backwards to the rest you'll need to do that work over and over (this is the pattern I was stuck in).
- Longer-term I wanted to be able to overlay models - sort of an A/B test given different configuration
- During the past few months I've met with countless entrepreneurs trying to launch startups pre-money. Most of them are trying to build models from scratch (or a template they found) and it's been a clear pain point for them
- I can share models in a service like this easily. I've already used it several times when someone's asked me to help validate their business model. I create the model in the app and send them a link. They can tweak it and show me their ideas. It's crude right now, but collaboration between founders on something like this might be worthwhile.
- Even longer-term I'd like to add in more templates to support startups beyond the initial financial model. Basically I looked at my last several years' worth of operational spreadsheets from helping run SaaS companies and thought "there ought to be an app for this".
From quickly scanning the comments, it seems that (i) many people would use a tool like this, despite its lack of flexibility, because it's easy to use and it works, (ii) very few had the same reaction as I did: it looks nice, but why not just use Excel.
Perhaps it's because I've spent many, many hours using Excel (although less so these days), but those problems you state don't seem like problems:
1) Fat-fingering is a problem only if you mix the task of coding (setting up the structure and formulae in Excel) with the task of using (changing the parameters). You don't code your web site at the same time as using it (except for manual testing), and it can be the same with Excel. Highlight all input cells with a yellow background and blue font, unset their 'Protected' property, and then lock the workbook. You/anyone can then play to your heart's content without worrying about messing up formulae.
2) When you are creating new versions of a spreadsheet, it's either because you are changing the structure (e.g. changing formulae, adding columns) or because you are changing the input data. If the latter then, yes, you can have several different versions. I've managed this in the past (when fundraising and doing regular reviews with investors) by having an 'Assumptions' tab which contains _all_ inputs. Each scenario (set of assumptions) has a name/number and a column of its own. The calculations and output dynamically reference just one scenario at a time depending on the scenario chosen from a drop-down. Not only that, but Excel's 'Data tables' feature (which explicitly supports only one-variable or two-variable scenarios) works with this, even if you have 10s of variables: just set the scenario number as your variable.
3) Using a 'template they found' is clearly a bad idea. They wouldn't just copy-paste some 'code they found' without studying it and the tests. In fact, for something simple, they'd probably just re-create their own after studying someone else's code for something similar. It's the same with Excel files.
4) Can't argue with this one :)
5) This last point intrigues me: until now I thought you were focused on business plans, and that you wouldn't overwrite the historical data with actuals. However, you mention operational data, suggesting you are talking about combining planning and tracking into one tool. Is this correct?
All good points. Sharing models without emailing spreadsheets around (now you have your version and I have mine) has probably been the best thing I've gotten out of it so far.
I've already had a few people email me links to their model with questions about implementation. Since posting on HN there have been more than 2,000 models created. If someone finds a serious bug in a formula or better yet, a new feature is added then they all get the benefit. There's not very clear path(s) to upgrading an Excel workbook.
And my straw man argument: I could make a case for building a lot of stuff in Excel that currently exist as successful hosted applications. Lowering the barrier to entry is one way to differentiate.
3) In my opinion, another reason why using a 'template they found' is clearly a bad idea, is because the process of creating the model is at least as important as the results you get.
And if you want to understand what you see, and tweak it to your business, you must have a very deep undestanding of all the mechanics behind the cells, which is very hard/painful/time consuming to obtain when you use a complex spreadsheet from someone else.
Still, I really like the concept of funded.io. Combining planning and tracking into one tool (automated for tracking) would be awesome!
Yeah, I get what you mean, and I've written some powerful stuff in Excel that avoids the issues stated. However, sometimes it's frustrating to try and work around the small idiosyncrasies in Excel and I can totally see why someone would use something like this instead.
In my mind the difference is that I don't have to build it! Using this I can just plug in my numbers and go instead of spending time building a spreadsheet.
Thank you for sharing. It's nice to see how other people do things.
A few suggestions which may save effort next time you do this:
- Only use the $ symbol as much as necessary. Usually you only need one (e.g. $C12 or C$12 rather than $C$12), unless you're referencing a single input. In your example, the excessive use of $ on the 'Detail' tab prevents me from adding an extra row for an employee simply by copying-and-pasting
- SUBTOTAL can be better than SUM for summing columns of numbers. You want subtotals for Sales, Support etc., as well as a grand total. SUBTOTAL can be applied to a whole column of values without fear of double-counting, as it ignore existing SUBTOTALs.
- EOMONTH(x,1) will give you the last day of the month after the date x. EOMONTH(x,0)+1 will give you the first day of the month instead. It's a bit easier to read than your DATE(YEAR, MONTH+1, DAY) construction.
The result - after ~30 hours it's usable enough to show. Obviously needs more flexibility around the variety of revenue models and expense categories. But really it's just for rough estimates at this point.