Formula Bot · B2C · AI spreadsheet assistant
Put the AI inside Excel and Sheets, with each user's language preset
Kept users against free ChatGPT early on; only ~10% of churn blamed on ChatGPT
Mixedpositioning-nicheintegrations-marketplaceslocalization
What they did
Against free ChatGPT and copycats, competed on convenience and customization: formulas generated inside Excel and Google Sheets so users never leave the spreadsheet or write a long prompt; at signup users set their speaking language and their Excel language (e.g. Spanish speakers who use English Excel, and vice versa). Later moved to features ChatGPT and Microsoft can't copy, such as the data analyzer.
What happened
Used in every country and many languages; convenience 'can only take you so far', so he shifted to harder-to-copy features. ~10% of ~5% churn attributed to ChatGPT.
- Stage
- growth
“the competitive advantage I had over ChatGPT was really convenience. Generate formulas within Excel. You don't have to leave the spreadsheet, you don't have to open up your browser, you don't have to open up ChatGPT and write this long prompt, you can do it all there.”
“When you sign up, you can put in your language, your speaking language, you can put in your language for what you prefer for Excel”
“So, early on, it really was convenience and customization, but that can only take you so far.”
Related topics
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More from this episode
- Formula Bot: Post your free tool in the niche subreddit with just a title and linkTop post of the day, then of the week, in r/excel
- Formula Bot: Repost your tool to r/InternetIsBeautiful after a commenter suggests it~10,000 upvotes and thousands of users; viral for months, but $5K API bill in days
- Formula Bot: Add a Stripe donation link to a free tool that went viralRecouped a few thousand dollars of a ~$5,000 API bill
- Formula Bot: Earn from free traffic with Google ads and a one-week sponsorSponsor ad drove lots of clicks; Google ads made a few bucks, not worth it
- Formula Bot: Charge for unlimited use and raise the price from $2.99 to $9~5,000 paying users and ~$26K MRR; ~5% churn
- Formula Bot: Do users' spreadsheet work for free on a call, in exchange for feedbackFounder says it turned a formula tool into a full data analysis product