I have to admit I don't quite understand your product.
With that said. I work a lot in excel. So does my co-workers.
Why is this better than xlwings?
As you said - people learn VBA - why is this better than learning Python?
Ask HN: I built it, nobody came, now what?
171–180 of 270 posts
Re: Ask HN: I built it, nobody came, now what?
#172The first thing to do is add a link to the MVP to this post.
Re: Ask HN: I built it, nobody came, now what?
#173Who 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 knowled…
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.
Re: Ask HN: I built it, nobody came, now what?
#174The premise as I read it from the website was "You have a problem with tool X, replace it with tool Y." Why would I do this, I know tool X, everyone uses X if we need to move from tool X there's DBs and web apps, tool Y is a total unknown with no clear benefit. Other issues: There was no Linux option for download so I can't try it & it's an electron app meaning there very well could be.
Thanks for the feedback. I've been trying a few different messages since that thread got traction. The Excel one clearly doesn't appeal to many...
Re: Linux, I've just built one there: https://github.com/jig-dev/jig-releases/releases/download/v0...
Re: Ask HN: I built it, nobody came, now what?
#175Just wanted to say thanks for sharing (again I guess). I have heard of d3 but not the observable project or jig. Not sure how I can use it exactly, but having it downloadable does give the user the confidence to put data In they would not feel comfortable online only. Like some other users have said going to be hard to take on excel / tableau but for programmers they can prototype something fast and cool. Look forwar…
Thanks for the kind words. You may be right. Prototyping is definitely a simpler way of getting things adopted first. Thinking LinqPad for javascript. Would anyone use this rather than jsfiddle, codepen, etc?
Re: Ask HN: I built it, nobody came, now what?
#176> What would have most impact in getting the app in front of people? Can't it be web-based? I'd like to try it, but I'm on Linux. I mean - Linux certainly isn't your problem, but not being web-based probably doesn't help.
Sorry. I am actually working on Linux... i just didn’t create the packages for it, as it’s more work to maintain and probably not very useful business-wise...
Re: Ask HN: I built it, nobody came, now what?
#177You are now on the front page of Hacker News- this is a golden opportunity to tell people about your product, yet there don't seem to be any links or information about it. Did you market it enough?
Yeah, that was unexpected... Ugh... Clearly, the product's not ready, the message's not ready. A bit of a missed opportunity there. Maybe in a couple of months when I have ironed out the wrinkles people saw here.
Link to the product? I don't care if it's not ready, I want to look at it :).
Re: Ask HN: I built it, nobody came, now what?
#178Who 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 knowled…
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 k…
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.
Re: Ask HN: I built it, nobody came, now what?
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Sorry for wasting your time. Not at all, this is what testing out new products is all about! I think you may have something here, but it's hard to figure out exactly what. Don't get me wrong, I think marketing and splash copy is important (a lot of comments are about your website), but I would personally focus first and foremost on the value proposition of your product. > - the whole thing is not exactly javascript…
The whole thing is based on Observable (www.observablehq.com) You’ll find plenty of onboarding stuff there if you’re interested. Observable is great, but it’s got some annoying traits (saas only, lock in, no 2d layouts, no tabs) which make it not well suited to solving business problems.
I can second your annoyance with observable. I don't use it for this reason.
Re: Ask HN: I built it, nobody came, now what?
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for your feedback. I’ve changed the message. There are a few ways to market the idea. Trying to find the most effective one.
I'm not sure you understood what I was trying to say. You should not rush to make a change to your website, this is something you need to think thoroughly. You can contact me by mail if you want (We surprisingly did the same school :))
ha nice! No I get what you say, I had changed the message just to take advantage of HN's front page feedback.
I have thought about this for a while. My experience is that if I sit down with someone and talk to them for a while, they do get it (as a few people on this thread have shown). The issue I have is that it's not a simple "here's your problem, here's a solution" type of situation, it's a lot finer than that.