> It seems like a good idea; it's usually not.
Not for a startup, no, but in my experience it works well as a lifestyle business. Companies pay well for this kind of work and it seems the number of spreadsheets they want to have replaced provide enough work for the next few decades to come. Better the replacement isn't half-baked though...
Re:Look for the duct tape
by jackweirdy on Saturday March 24, 2018 @12:12PM
(#16667324)
It may also have been in a blog post, but Joel Spolsky makes that remark in his presentation "You Suck at Excel" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nbkaYsR94c
I understand where you're coming from, but this is just not good advice. Somebody (I can't remember if it was pg, Joel Spolsky, or someone else) once wrote an entire essay basically saying "DON'T make a startup that's just pivot tables. I have seen so many SaaS startups fail because they didn't realize they were just selling pivot tables at a much higher price than Microsoft wants for Excel."
Also take a look at this HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12450802 where a whole bunch of people express bafflement of and loathing for people who unnecessarily replace Excel with half-baked software. It seems like a good idea; it's usually not.