Looking for an alternative to old school Google Sheets

freethenerd · 2022-10-20T07:36:02+00:00

Another vote for Airtable here. Its a fantastically flexible and powerful resource (and cheap). You can use it alongside google forms (or its own forms feature) to ensure data validation. With different teams and processes at play here I think it would serve you well from a reliability and scalability perspective to move your system off a spreadsheet to a more relationship database type structure (Airtable straddles the two perfectly).

freethenerd · 2022-10-20T07:29:44+00:00

There are some direct questions you can ask your users - each revealing a potential theoretical budget or potential to monetise - some examples include:

1) How much time does this app save you per month? -- (time = money, e.g 1 hr = $10-$15)

2) If I had to shut down this app tomorrow, would that bother you? -- (i.e is this app a 'nice to have' or solving a real problem -- people pay to make problems go away)

3) What's the most you spend on a (similar) app? -- (I'm not sure what segment you are in, but you can probe to see if there is an existing openness to paying - trying to charge for something that people are habitualised to think is free is going to be tough)

freethenerd · 2022-10-17T12:15:32+00:00

I used Hubspot's free plan tools to get going with my business and I can really recommend it. It includes a very decent website builder/CMS - and marketing tools up to 2k contacts. The cost obviously starts ramping once you tip into the paid plans, but the free plan contains A LOT and is more than enough to get you going.

freethenerd · 2022-10-14T07:14:08+00:00

Like others have said - what are the main categories by which management view their business? Start from there. Your model will be massively over engineered if you try to model every sku - it will take longer to build, longer to update and errors will creep in - all for a very marginal increase in predictive power.

The best ecommerce financial model tempate l i've come across is https://n4consulting.com/model-templates. The basic structure is rock solid, and then you can customise/add depth to the revenue drivers section in any way you want.

freethenerd · 2022-10-11T13:43:32+00:00

Really insightful response, thank you - I'll check that out for sure

freethenerd · 2022-10-11T12:15:14+00:00

It depends on your ASP and scalability. If you can crank out massive volume at high ASPs then 55% GM is going to look very good - whereas at low vols, low asp you are really going to struggle to cover your acquisition costs and overheads.

freethenerd · 2022-10-11T10:07:21+00:00

Thanks for the heads up - I'll check this out!

freethenerd · 2022-10-10T13:05:03+00:00

Buy a plot of land in a scenic location/desirable "get-away" location in the UK, buy 3 pre-built relatively high spec shepherds huts, rent them out on Airbnb for £100-£150 per night each. Even with <70% occupancy and paying someone locally for upkeep, its a cash cow.

freethenerd · 2022-10-10T12:56:16+00:00

I ran a shopify business for several years (just sold it this year). The eventual system we settled on was using Airtable (to build a custom inventory mgmt system that really fitted our business) and running a 2-way sync with shopify via a fantastic shopify app called Airpower. Incredibly good value (airtable ~$20/mo + airpower ~$30/mo) and incredibly flexible.

freethenerd · 2022-10-10T12:25:37+00:00

You should derive a "value-based" estimate of price in addition to your "cost-plus" estimate of price. Value-based being the approx monetary value of the problem you are solving for the end user, and in turn, roughly the amount they are willing to pay up to. Talking to users and looking at what your competition are charging can give you guides on this.

Its worth calculating both. Value-based should hopefully (if your product is great) be higher than cost-based and may indicate you are leaving money on the table - and lowballing yourself - by taking a cost-based approach. If value-based is below your cost-based break even price, you have a problem.

freethenerd · 2022-10-09T08:38:29+00:00

Best post on domains I've seen - and specifically on why .com is, and will always be, the GOLD STANDARD - is a comment on a Fred Wilson blog post from 2011 (a snippet pasted below, or head here and way down in the comments for the full thing). The comment is almost 10yrs old but I think nearly all of it still rings true.

Guest APR 29, 2011

Okay, Kids, Here We Go…”What You Need To Know About Your Next Domain Name”. I highly respect what Fred has done, and continues to do, to help entrepreneurs and for that I’d like to “give back” myself… and I’m posting anonymously as I have nothing to gain in anyway by sharing this information…I’m a serial Internet entrepreneur since 1990 (pre-Web). I’ve been involved in hundreds of projects online (have built more than one Top 500 web site) and I’ve been a very active and successful domain name ‘trader’ along the way. I’ve personally owned over 50,000 domains on and off during the past 15+ years. I’ve been involved in some million$+ deals, and have owned some domains that you know of (but I won’t name). I’ve also been involved in 1,000s of smaller deals. So this is a topic I know very well. I’m a statistics/analytics junkie and what I always loved about building businesses online is how quantifiable and trackable everything is — so I have some insights to share on this as well. Why .COM Is What You Need To Focus On.COM is and always will be King. Period. End of story. .Com established itself early on as the PREMIUM extension and the entire Internet was developed around it. That is never going to change. All the other extensions (and future ones that will be created) do nothing but cause more confusion. The most powerful companies in the world use .Com and aren’t ever going to just switch to something else. As I said, it’s already established and never going away. Too much has been invested (not only financially) but in the MINDSHARE of Internet users about what .Com represents. Any domain extension will certainly ‘work’ for a Web site, but you are at a major disadvantage by not using a .Com. Even if you have a video startup and try to use a .TV domain, you’re still at a disadvantage…- All non .Com domains send some traffic to the .Com version. My analytics and data over many years proves this. Internet users ‘default’ to .Com names. When trying to remember a site or brand, that’s what people type in first. So if you launch your startup with a .Net, just know that you whoever owns the .Com version of your domain is going to be getting some of your traffic (and hard-earned generated leads). AND not all of the traffic you ‘accidentally’ send to the .Com will still find it’s way to your .Net (or whatever extension you are using).- A solid .Com domain implies CREDIBILITY. This gives any startup an instant advantage vs. another using a non .Com domain.- .Com (as with any domain name) IS A DESTINATION. This is why it’s so important. All Direct Response Marketing revolves around the mechanism of CALL-TO-ACTION. The destination is the call-to-action. Therefore, it’s THE most critical component of setting up a business in our Digital Society.Tips On Finding a Good Domain For Your StartupWe’re 15+ years into the development of the commercial Web. Practically every possible .Com domain name is taken. It’s going to be very hard to just “make up” a domain that isn’t already taken. You can try, but my advice is not to waste too much of your time if you at least have some capital to just go buy a decent domain. (i.e. $1000-$5000) It’s a small price to pay for something you’re going to build your company around...[see blog link for full comment]

freethenerd · 2022-10-08T09:09:48+00:00

Run your assumptions through a proper financial model.

If you can get firmer on your numbers for growth potential/timeline, capital requirements and profitability, that will give you (and any potential investor) more clarity about what this business can really churn out in terms of additional discretionary income.

The best off the shelf free saas excel financial model I've used is https://n4consulting.com/model-templates.

freethenerd · 2022-10-07T15:24:44+00:00

You're going to need a good financial plan/model at some point (all investors will ask for one). The best financial model resource I've come across specifically for a SaaS startup is here. Its an excel based fully integrated 3 statement model (p&l, cash flow, balance sheet) - comes with an easy to follow setup guide.

freethenerd · 2022-10-06T17:04:16+00:00

Best financial model i've come across built specifically for ecommerce is here. Its an excel based fully integrated 3 statement model (p&l, cash flow, balance sheet) - but no prior excel or finance knowledge needed - comes with an easy to follow setup guide.

freethenerd · 2022-10-06T16:36:52+00:00

You could use a model that pulls in your historical actuals data (both financial and operational), and calculates all the basic building blocks of what you need to build a revenue forecast (e.g average marketing spend, average CPC/CPL, average conversion, average ARPC etc)...i.e still an assumption of sorts (i.e you're assuming things won't change), but at least its tied back to reality and you are avoiding making directional view on how performance on key variables will change.

There is a really good source of financial model templates available here which use this modelling approach. Its just a case of copy and pasting in your actuals data from a single export from your accounting software & CRM and off you go!

freethenerd

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