http://spreadsheets-on-steroids.tumblr.com/post/82903500034/my-failed-application-to-yc-summer-2014
BTW, here is also somewhat relevant discussion about crazy/clever ways of using spreadsheets – https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7363824
(1) There are 2 main pain points: 1) for programmers it is building and debugging systems in non-interactive way; 2) for non-programmers is building contraptions using Excel and bubble gum – see some discussion on that here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7363824
(2) Potential market size is around 20 million exiting software developers, based on e.g. this post http://www.quora.com/Ruby-on-Rails-Professionals/Where-can-I... Around 0.05% of that market needs to be captured to have reasonable ROI I guess.
(3) Agree with you. BTW, may you detail what is your background?
Either your project should be open source or it should be aimed at non-programmers like finance or accounting people.
I think the best plan might be to create an open source tool first and then, when the product start to be good enough, sell special packages around it for finance/accounting.
As for me, last thing I remember – I've purchased http://theolabrothers.com/sip/ when is wasn't free. And it is just a simple tool I don't require at all (any image editor can be used instead), it is just much more convenient than any other alternative.
While software developers don't usually buy platform stuff like compilers, libraries etc – they are usually more than willing to buy products that make things simple. Otherwise companies like GitHub or (my own product – Hosted CI) won't get any revenue.
I want to take direct manipulation of data present in spreadsheets and make it more universal. Something more similar to ideas expressed by Chris Granger – http://www.chris-granger.com/2014/03/27/toward-a-better-prog...