Ask HN: who will buy PG's startup idea #22?
So, for some time I have been designing/ tinkering/ pondering something
along the lines of PG's startup idea #22 (web-based spreadsheet/database
hybrid).<p>Thing is, I can't think of who will buy such a product. Would appreciate
some clues in this respect...<p>After a couple of iterations, I decided to write a web app that replaces
emailing Excel spreadsheets around. That was a pet annoyance of mine
at work, actually.<p>But now that I think about it, what kind of person emails Excel's                                                                           around? My guess is, usually they will be assistants and other low-level
knowledge workers in big organizations. Managers in these organization
will have somebody else do the emailing around and report the results.
And employees in smaller, more agile companies will go for something
like Google Apps or whatever web app is already there that suits their
particular domain.<p>The issues then are, 1) these assistants that email the Excel's most                                                                        likely don't see emailing spreadsheets around as a problem, and 2)
even if they saw it as a problem, can they do anything about it?<p>So, I'm not sure that the Excel emailing public will be a good
market for my app.<p>What other use cases do you see for this type of web-based spreadsheet
thingie?