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"I was an accountant for 8 years and employed Microsoft Excel every day for many hours," starts Google Sheets and Apps Script expert educator Ben L Collins. "Almost all my work was completed using Excel but I did not have any background. I'd done some coding however I had not completed anything with spreadsheets.
"Pretty at the beginning of my job I was being asked by my boss me to do a bunch of things in Excel such as 'Combine these tables' et cetera and I was doing it all manually!" His boss showed the formulas he could use to save some time and Ben realized then and there that the most important skill to have in any kind of finance-related profession is being able to manipulate information.
"The individuals who do it really well are leagues ahead of the rest of us, who just stumble through," Ben continues. I thought, 'Right, I'm going to need to brush up my skills and I came across several websites on the internet like mrexcel.com and chandoo.org They had the same skills as I am currently, however in Excel about 15 years ago."
The more Ben looked into spreadsheets and formulae, the more enthralled he got: "It was this rabbit hole that was just getting into deeper into the depths of darkness." He realized that some of the training in coding that he had received in college could be combined with other programming languages for databases including VBA.
Over the course of his career as an accountant, he actually became much more interested in the field of technology, and less in finance or accounting. "After 8 years of working, I was like I'm done I'm done!'. I wasn't sure of what my next step was However, one of my initial ideas was to move into becoming an engineer," Ben tells me.
It's yWYQFjXiawUjOZ9y Ben L Collins speaking at an evening event
He completed some classes then began to apply for work. "It didn't really go anywhere at the time, but I started my own website as well as writing pieces. Some of the early articles I wrote about Google Sheets and they're those that ended up being noticed by Google Search." These resulted in a variety of clients requesting and paying freelance job.
"In 2014 and in 2015, there was a trickle of inbound traffic saying, 'Hey, can I get help in building that dashboard in Sheets?' Or "Can you take a review my spreadsheets for our company and assist me in figuring out the best way to improve those formulas? ?'."
The work encompassed Excel, Google Sheets, SQL and Tableau. "It was any work really however it was an opportunity to consider"Maybe there's something in this. It might be possible to become a freelancer rather than returning to my previous job' . I did not want to go back to accounting!" Ben smiles. "I would like to stay up to develop my skills and technology."
Goodbye accounting, hello education
In the beginning, the education website General Assembly was just a company that was just starting and had plans to launch professional courses for developers as well as data analysts. "They had launched an online data analysis program that was part-time. As I'd taken a course together as a student in one of their developer classes, I knew the team that was there. The first time they launched this course on data, they were recruiting for instructors. It was Excel, SQL and Tableau," Ben continues. "I thought, 'Hey it's exactly the job I've done over the past eight years. !'." Ben went through the interview process and got the job and he taught that course for several iterations in 2015.
"That inspired me to get involved in teaching again," Ben recalls. "I'd taught at college as a mentor to younger students when I was finishing my year." He started adding in some corporate training to the online offerings, such as the sale of tutorials and classes. "As I began to build the number of people who were interested in my content, I decided to create my own course and test the waters."
) A course on the Query function in Google Sheets
The course's teaching was received fairly well. It was good enough to encourage Ben to launch a second course. "I made use of a website named Teachable because I was looking to create a direct connection with my students and own that relationship myself instead of handing it over to a marketplace, such as Udemy."
I decided to do some digging and one name that kept popping up was the guy who is the editor of the tech news magazine Stratechery, Ben Thompson. He's known as the OG!" Ben laughs. "I joined a few subscriptions to check out how other people such as Flowing Data and Craig Mod were doing this." Ben had been reading their newsletters since he was a kid and I wanted to know how they had developed their membership-based businesses. I thought, "I want mine to look like them.'. I loved the sign-up was so simple and easy - I was thinking"I would like that membership experience..'
Moving forward sustainably
In context, Ben's subscription offering currently consists of premium (or 'gated') content that is located on WordPress and a premium email newsletter delivered via emails using Kit (formerly ConvertKit). In terms of information, it's based on Google Sheets and includes information about product features and updates - as well as tips for getting most value out of it.
"The following newsletter takes deep dive into certain new features which Google introduced in the last year," Ben adds. These are really useful functions to manipulate data, so there'll be a tutorial about that and a link to the Google Sheet template that people can then download themselves. In addition, he'll be hosting a live discussion on the topic. "I use the newsletters to communicate information about the date and time, as well as the Google Meet link for the live sessions."
When asked about the future of his business, Ben thinks membership could become the core of his company. "I certainly would like to draw many more members as I want the membership to become the only product available," he says. "I have that model of a library of free content but you also have the option to be a member of the pro version and help me out and receive the additional material."
Simulating a game of chess on Google Sheets
He says that he was able to give consultations and even put ads on his newsletter but he aims to stop doing this: "if I can build the membership to be big enough, it will be nice to get rid of everything else. There's a couple of small issues to be worked on, but increasing the size of the group is essential. "
He mentions that he has various ideas for expanding his offering. "I've come up with a few ideas currently that I could do a better job of sharing these live sessions and we've got initiatives to bring members in coming to next year. The product itself will evolve. It's not going to differ from the norm, however, we'll continue to do live-streamed stuff."
He adds that he wants to discover a better method for members to communicate their data issues they're working with and the issues they'd like to solve for the future "That may be through "office hours' or even a more efficient method to ask inquiries" - so long that it's done in a sustainable and valuable way for all parties involved.
Ben affirms that, at the moment his interaction with his followers is conducted via emails. "I recommend that people reply saying, 'Hey, please let me know what you're working on' - I like it because it's manageable.
He would offer forums chats and "cohort courses" in which participants worked through Google Sheets issues online together in a group. "We completed two of them in 2021 when they were the latest trend. It worked really well However, it felt extremely intensive for the first five weeks that the class was in - it was a 'firehose' of questions. I haven't done this community in the past since I'm apprehensive that when I turn the switch on, I'll be unable to really switch it off. It's something I'd like to think through, how can I manage it with a long-term perspective?
"I wasn't even promising live streams when I initially began, thinking"Just go live and observe what the response is. See if I enjoy performing it, before I commit to everything. The launch is going very well! The man is keen on adding live events "They're fun and people really get a lot of value from the sessions. We'll see how that goes!"
Ben hosting the Zoom sessions for his participants
"Right now I'm teaching topics: I'll pick a topic and we'll cover that for the live class," he continues. In the course with cohorts, the format was more of an open forum: "People would come in and say, 'Hey, this is the problem I'm struggling with I'm stuck on this formula', and we'd discuss the problem live. Other people could observe. That's something we'll look at doing next year; it's a great way for people to get involved."
In closing, he thinks there's a possibility that a Q&A forum is definitely an option, however he states: "I just want to ensure that I am able to do the task in a way which doesn't overwhelm me." The conversation suggests Ben is already on the road to building an ongoing and solid connection with his community. It is our opinion that maintaining a relationship over time is crucial to a successful membership "Little actions - we'll gradually build up!" he smiles.
More information
Ben Collins is an educator, writer, developer and co-founder of The Collins School of Data. He develops online courses and write on Google Workspace tools. My focus is on data analysis and automation using Google Sheets and Apps Script.
Ben L Collins' website
He loves building lightweight, data-driven applications that work with the Google stack: Google Sheets, Looker Studio, Google Apps Script, Forms, Docs, Gmail and more. For more details, visit benlcollins.com.