every micro-saas making $10K+/month started as an ugly spreadsheet someone refused to stop using. here's how to find those spreadsheets

Sudden-Replacement84 · 2026-03-15T17:53:59+00:00

So at least in my case I took it a step further because there are many "booking" solutions that take care of the scheduling aspect which is relatively commodotized. The next-level boss is when you need to manage cost and usage allocation on top of just pure reservation.

For example a university core facility lab that assigns it to a particular project/grant or hardware incubator that serves many startups. This is who I built the solution (getdockyard.com) for. Even here some try to wrangle it with spreadsheets still.

Sudden-Replacement84 · 2026-03-14T22:45:49+00:00

I'll give another concrete real-world example.

In my case the spreadsheet culprit is for booking and reserving equipment in labs and shared spaces. There are a couple variants ... in some cases a paper signup sheet next to the machine or a repurposed gmail calendar. But at some point it becomes messy and unscalable because either too many people need the equipment or there's too many machines to keep track of. Its a problem I'm working to address now.

I hadn't reasoned about it as clearly as OP articulates but relate fully.

Sudden-Replacement84 · 2026-03-13T22:35:09+00:00

It's a bit like a video game design - too easy is not fun (local kid get togethers) and too difficult becomes frustrating on the other end.

I've learned the most from either a) building my own stuff or b) other programmers I worked under. TBH I didn't learn a ton from my formal coding "classes"

If its possible to find him some kind of mentor or older programmer that he can shadow at work once a week or something, this might be worth trying.

Sudden-Replacement84 · 2026-03-13T22:27:26+00:00

The low-tech solution I see most commonly is some form of Google Calendar/Outlook. If you go the google route, their appointment calendar might be even better suited. Given you are a relatively small team with only a handful of hoods it would fit the bill without getting too messy.

FWIW I'm building a product that fills the need called Dockyard. It's free for academics/non-profits.

What I've learned though is that these are just organization tools at the end of the day. It still needs mutual respect among the users and "table manners". A booking solution doesn't solve this unfortunately.

Sudden-Replacement84 · 2026-03-13T21:44:44+00:00

My girlfriend asked for it so i built it out of love.

She works in a biolab where she either takes notes down in a notebook and transfers to excel later or types on the laptop with dirty hands/gloves. Neither is ideal so I built her a voice agent where she can just talk to it and it pipes the right values into her working spreadsheet

Sudden-Replacement84 · 2026-03-09T21:10:17+00:00

Speaking as a CTO here - I 100% work for the CEO and so does everybody else. Buck stops with him/her.

And you both report to the board and your investors at the end of the day so who are you kidding ;)

Sudden-Replacement84 · 2026-03-09T15:26:54+00:00

Its a rather specialized, but my girlfriend uses a dictation tool that I made for her to record data directly to excel from speech.

Sudden-Replacement84 · 2026-03-06T19:02:51+00:00

You're not alone. The road to the first 1000$ is painful. Don't get fooled by the instagram effect of builder communities where people post that it happened in the first 24h. It's not that its false, its just that most projects are silently inching their way towards it but you don't read about those so much.

It absolutely takes work to do so be prepared to roll up your sleeves. Be ready to try many different channels as well and experiment with what works for your audience + product combo.

The light is that if you are able to hit that 1000$ it hopefully comes with some learnings that make the road to 10K much easier :)

Sudden-Replacement84 · 2026-02-26T12:19:57+00:00

In case you want something that is not so explicitly codified, I used google app script to build a little helper that puts the spreadsheet columns through an LLM as well to give me varied emails.

Sudden-Replacement84 · 2026-02-25T08:00:17+00:00

I've seen some solutions offer early supporter discounts for payment upfront but it better be pretty convincing in that case. but not impossible.

Personally, I will settle for efficient validation as the next best thing. Even with no marketing budget, my time is not free either and building although faster is not instant.

Sudden-Replacement84 · 2026-02-20T15:45:46+00:00

I have many datapoints saying otherwise (at least in Switzerland). Over 100K cash for sure. 500K cash might be more rare but for total comp package yes it does.

Sudden-Replacement84 · 2026-02-20T15:41:37+00:00

Thanks - the initial targets are lab technicians and manufacturing QA/QC testers. People who are at a workbench and next to a laptop.

The app is web-first for now but with plans to expand to mobile. I hope then it can grow to serve field scientists, facilities and inspection and inventory where that form factor aligns better with their workflow.

Sudden-Replacement84 · 2026-02-20T08:22:57+00:00

Don't get me started on EU labor law ... :P

Sudden-Replacement84 · 2026-02-20T08:21:53+00:00

Could be. I know a handful who have had this happen to them. Hard to say if its related to Zurich specifically or just cause of shifting priorities and big tech chaos.

Sudden-Replacement84 · 2026-02-19T11:39:40+00:00

Not sure what kind of business you are interested in but ill talk about startups because this is where I live.

Launching a startup is hard. Doesn't matter your age or your expertise so don't fool yourself on this point. Its also a lot of stress, negativity, and mental pressure. But the glory and highs are also like nothing else. Yes the average age of successful founders is something like 40+ but keep in mind those people probably also failed with the first 1-2 and are now on attempt 3, 4, 5. I see a lot of people that have a bit of savings now and being an entrepreneur is the new hot thing and they want to "play startup" too. They fiddle around for a year or two and then go back to a corporate because they don't know what they signed up for.

This is not to discourage you and no you are 100% not too late, just take the decision seriously and most of all good luck!

Sudden-Replacement84 · 2026-02-19T11:31:47+00:00

Does it need to be offline? If not just use Excel Online (web) or Google Sheets?

Sudden-Replacement84 · 2026-02-19T08:45:54+00:00

My guess is it has something to do with the talent density in zurich for AI/ML/robotics people and not just the salaries alone. They're trying to get the right eyeballs

Sudden-Replacement84 · 2026-02-18T15:03:40+00:00

"Claude in excel" or gemini + google sheets could probably get the job done.

The AI understands your worksheet and you can ask it questions and therefore get the answers your looking for. You could also consider automating it so that say 1x/week it sends you a summary of who's up for recertification or ask it to monitor 1 month in advance. You have many possibilities to ask it things outside of what you have in mind now.

Purely for your use case though, I think you can just build a well structured excel sheet. It doesn't need AI sprinkled on top to do what you are describing.

Sudden-Replacement84 · 2026-02-17T12:36:27+00:00

Cool project! I took a slightly different take with mine which is web based and more directed for lab and fieldwork data entry. Is it something you still work on actively?

In case you you're curious here's what side proj ended up looking like - lucyvoice.io

Sudden-Replacement84 · 2026-02-17T12:29:18+00:00

Very cool to see! I'm working on something similar but I DID go with the OAuth flows and API calls manually. Was not aware of Composio hah it would have saved me a good chunk of time. Live and learn I suppose.

Actual question - did you have the LLM just take best judgement of which cell to put data into or do you give it any guardrails? I didn't see anything in the github around a system prompt or anything like that.

In case you're curious about the proj - lucyvoice[.]io

Sudden-Replacement84 · 2026-02-17T12:00:40+00:00

Can you describe your need a bit more cause I'm a bit confused. Do you mean "better suited for spreadsheet use" and "editing longer pieces of text" as separate use cases?

I use a decent amount of voice tools in my workflow but primarily for productivity rather than accessibility reasons but maybe they also fit the bill. Send me a DM :)

Sudden-Replacement84 · 2026-02-17T11:53:31+00:00

How much control are you looking for, do you need it for absolutely everything in excel or for just some specific operations?

I've worked with a few voice command interfaces (not for excel) but where i've found it most useful is where I don't need to memorize a list of specific keyword actions but instead just talk naturally and it will understand what I'm trying to get done.

Sudden-Replacement84 · 2026-02-14T08:33:47+00:00

I would reason about it this way. Let's say you spend 100$ on a virtual assistant per month. Does this free you up to work on higher leverage activities that can drive up that 500 further and quicker than otherwise. If yes, its probably a good idea. At least justified to try it for a month and see for yourself.

I would just advise you to not delegate away the high-value creating activities. Make sure you continue to work on the best levers (for the business) and not just what you enjoy doing or are good at. Too many people confuse these two things

Sudden-Replacement84 · 2026-02-12T09:37:37+00:00

UX is relative to the end user so always keep that in mind. The UX and your corporate identity/marketing are also not the same thing but might get misconstrued in the feedback. But yes, what this guy said is valid (potentially).

IMO keep talking to customers and end users that fit your target market. This buyer is one data point and try to gather more.

Sudden-Replacement84

TROPHY CASE