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Ask HN: Rate my Product : QueryCell
45 points by samh on Aug 30, 2009 | hide | past | favorite | 35 comments
Hi,

I've saved up 6 months worth of money and am taking time off to try and start a software company.

I have just released a new version of my app QueryCell and would love any feedback people have.

QueryCell is an add-in for Microsoft Excel that allows you to query Excel data using SQL, Generate SQL Insert statements, generate test data and mark rows.

http://www.querycell.com/ http://www.querycell.com/welcome.html (welcome is going to be the landing page for ads)

Thanks



Clickable Links

http://www.querycell.com/welcome.html

http://www.querycell.com


Nice, However, a question raised in my mind. Are you targeting Excel's power users, such as analysts and accountants or software developers?

Since "standard" users are not going to learn SQL your market is narrowed to developers only.

You may add a GUI based Query-Builder such as can be found in MS Acess and MSSqlServer and other DB systems and by these you can gain more market share.

Build an easy to use wizard and let the end user choose between SQL mode and GUI mode.


> Since "standard" users are not going to learn SQL your market is narrowed to developers only.

Power users aren't _that_ narrow a user base. There are an enormous number of data miners (analysts, integrators, etc.) out there who work in Excel because they must, or because they're used to it, or because that's the format that their data arrives in, or because it's a nice visual tool that allows them to easily inspect intermediate results---but who ultimately need to run reports across multiple large spreadsheets. SQL is astonishingly easy for such people, and I've watched dozens of data experts learn it from scratch (with help).

I'd beg you not to add wizards to your product, and instead focus on treating power users rather than being all things to all people. (Your syntax highlighting is good, and little red underlines on unparseable SQL would be good.) Trying to train users to use (or avoid using) SQL with wizards is a dangerous business for a piece of software to be in.

This looks incredibly useful. I'll check it out more thoroughly on Monday.


I agree 100%, I don't think it is wise (at least initially) to water down your product with wizards, etc. Focus on that niche and focus hard.


Thanks for these opinions all.

I can see the arguments both for and against wizards and gui query tools.

On the one hand I personally agree with the jcdreads and viggity. These sorts of interfaces are very difficult to get right and dilute the SQL focus.

On the other hand a number of people have suggested going this way, so people do think it would be useful.

I have no immediate plans to go this way but I intend to be responsive to what customers request.

Cheers


Read up on Joel Spolsky's days at Microsoft trying to build a GUI code-builder for VBScript. Ultimate fail. Too complicated for basic users, too simple for power users.


Brilliant idea. There have been so many times where I've been in Excel thinking "if only I could run SQL on this."

Only thing to concern yourself with now is how long before Microsoft implements this in Excel?

P.S. Great to hear an Aussie accent in a demo video!


There have been so many times where I've been in Excel thinking "if only I could run SQL on this.

There is a Perl DBD for this. It doesn't run in Excel, but you can run SQL queries on spreadsheet files.


I don't use windows or excel but if i did, i would be getting interested in QueryCell. I am going to pass the url along to people I know who do.

Does QueryCell work when excel is being run on a non-windows OS via wine? ( I assume not, but if it does, I know more people who might be interested ).

--

Also, the video cut off for me in mid-sentence. I think you are missing the end. For me, it ended at with "if you would like to try query cell for free, feel free to download".


Thanks SpooneyBarger.


You have a million dollar idea in your hands. If you get the promotion and customer care right, you'll be very successful. Especially if you incorporate tzury's idea. There are countless departmental "applications" that use Excel, and being able to query data directly solves a problem that many encounter at some point or another. It's usually frustrating enough, to get people to pony up money for it.


Thanks for the feedback all.

@smicallef

Yes the idea of Microsoft proving a similar functionality is scary, but I feel a little bit like "if they were going to do it they would have done it", also they have access to protect. But maybe I am in for an unpleasant suprise, certainly a risk.

@tzury

Yes there is an interesting marketing proposition here in my opinion. I can either market to heavy Excel users who don't use SQL yet or market to SQL users who occasionally find themselves using Excel. It's an interesting one. At the moment I am leaning more towards SQL users, they can immediately see the possibilities. hmmm.


You can get Excel to run SQL queries already, although it's more painful than your method. See e.g. bottom of http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/697...

I could see a lot of one-off usage (for occasional Excel users) and a few requests for a refund under the 30-day guarantee.

That said, it looks like it'd make the job a lot easier. The first thing I do when I get a big excel 'database' is convert it to something else!


Feature Idea: Compile to "Vlookup" or compile to VBA.

In other words: I build a spreadsheet with QueryCell, but I want people who don't have QueryCell to be able to use it.

So I hit "Compile", and the program generates standard formulas using hlookup/vlookup and/or VBA so that the spreadsheet works for those who don't have the Plugin. (Of course it adds a link to "Built with QueryCell" :)


Thanks for the idea caffeine.

I don't quite follow though. To use querycell you load a normal Excel file into Excel. You can then open the QueryCell pane to query the regions of data in the open worksheet/workbooks.

The result sets returned from queries are then added to a new 'resultset' worksheet.

So as it stands you can pass around spreadsheets you have used with QueryCell to people without QueryCell.

Let me know if I misunderstand.

Cheers


No offense but if you're not currently implementing this the way the guy suggested you can make the product a ton better if you take his suggestion (I'm guessing you yourself aren't a power user, again no offense intended).

It sounds like what you're doing is generating a new worksheet and populating it with (static) data generated by running the user's SQL query.

This is fine for sharing static data but b/c you're apparently not using excel formulas in generating the 'resultset' worksheet (it's just raw data, again) the 'resultset' sheets aren't going to be auto-updating if the underlying data got changed (on the 'sourcedata' worksheet, if you follow).

If you can compile SQL queries into excel formulas that'll stay updated as data change this goes from an A to A+ produce.

You should start by looking at the documentation for Vlookup and Hlookup, as those are the built-in functions people use to (fake) selection.


Yep, exactly what I meant. Thanks for explaining it better.


Thanks caffeine and frig.

I now understand what you is being suggested.

Yes it's true, that is not how QueryCell currently works.

I will have a think about this idea. My first impression is that it would be quite complicated to implement and get right but very powerful if done well.

Thanks Guys.


Another idea - viral marketing. You should at the bare minimum add a link in a cell under the result set so that the user who gets the result set created with QueryCell will know about it. You might consider a special landing page for those links


Thanks again Amir, I appreciate all your ideas.

What do you think about this : http://www.querycell.com/captionMe.html

I need help with my Comic Ad.


Seconded - this is a million dollar idea! Well defined niche, great product, very useful, very catchy name and branding (totally straight forward) - can't get any better than this.

Not sure how hard it is to create a Mac OS X version as well, but that would probably not be the initial target audience.


"87 rows in 3 seconds" - performance could be a problem. Last time i used Excel I thought that you can already run sql on the data and if you need to really do that sort of thing you'd just export to sqlserver and do it there. I think this idea is the wrong market. Those that know sql will use sql against sqlserver as I just described, and those that don't spend countless hours in excel trying to use formulas.

sorry, I prefer to like start up ideas but this one just doesn't seem to have any legs in my mind.


Thanks for your honest opinion sfphotoarts.

I would say in defense that:

- The return time doesn't scale with the number of rows returned. I have just run a query that queried 6 tables, invoked numerous string concatenations, included 2 MOD functions, 2 RAND functions and returned 22,000 rows, it took 11 seconds. This is not up to database performance of course.

- There is a static overhead to running a query, and that's much greater in QueryCell than in a database directly.

- QueryCell is not meant to replace databases, just make life easier for people working in Excel.

It was pretty much the 'countless hours trying to use formulas' that made me think about QueryCell.

Cheers


What I would need would be a simple way to auto-update some cells based off an SQL query on the rest of the data. Can your tool do this?


This is awesome! Love the idea and the implementation looks really slick too. I had to work on a huge excel file before (like 400,000 rows) and I so wished to have an add-on to run a simple SELECT query.

Congrats on the bold move. I am in the same boat -- just quit my job last Friday and will be working on my startup. I wish you the best of luck!

Alex


This looks really cool, I would definitely be one of your target market if I still worked at my job (which I quit half a year ago to focus on my own startup). I now use Apple iWork 09 almost exclusively, so as soon as you come out with a Numbers version, please let us know!


It looks like a really great product, I might personally find some use for it.

When you're generating the table names, I think naming the table after the sheet it's on might be more intuitive than a single letter, especially when there's only one data range per sheet.


Thanks for the suggestion, I will have a think about it.

The table names can be changed, you could click on the default letter name, 'A' for example, and rename it to SALES_NUMBERS for example.

I see the sense in using the worksheet name although there may be complications if there were multiple data regions on the same sheet or if the sheet name was long, as there isn't a huge amount of screen real-estate for the regions grid.

Thanks for the food for thought.


I like the idea, I sometimes need to work with excel and hate formulas and filters. I prefer sql and most of the time I don't export data from excel to a DB, I just grind my teeth and do some filtering and formulas in excel. some remarks:

1. Perhaps you can let define the tables in the FROM clause like: FROM workbook1.xls~sheet2~A1:D4 AS table1

2. Add an option to autohide the not selected rows instead of coloring the selected rows, this will give a condensed result set that the user can maybe copy and paste to another sheet.

3. Don't worry about Microsoft competing - they might offer to buy you out.

keep focused! Good luck!


Thanks for the ideas amih!


Great product. Hard to find doing Google search though. Need to get it to show up when typing "Excel sql", "Excel query", "sql in excel", etc. etc. I think if you do your sales will rocket. Good luck and thanks for a great product


Looks like a good idea to me.

I don't work with Excel often enough to purchase but will keep in the back of my mind in case I have a future need.

Marketing advice: invest in a copy writer and voice actor and reproduce your video.


Good idea.

You might want to get a professional PSD designer to sharpen the overall look. It has a template like look for design, though for this concept design might not be as important as selling it's functionality.

Good luck!


I'm going to try it at work on Monday. If I like it, I'll buy it. You don't know how many times I've had to export a csv to do some sql on it, then import it back into excel.


That's great to hear. If once you've taken a look you have any feedback, positive or negative, I would love to hear about it. The contact details are on the site.

Cheers




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