Andrew Kamphey is a creator who has made $200k from teaching people how to use Google Sheets over the past three years. Think 'Miss Excel' but he's a beardy guy who doesn't dance in his videos. In this interview Andrew shares his marketing wins, tips for course makers and what he's achieved with his bootstrapped Google Sheets tutorial business.
How much have you made from BetterSheets so far?
I've grossed $200,000 in revenue in 3 years. I started Better Sheets April 3rd, 2020 after a 24 hours sprint to launch something. Better Sheets is a set of tools, templates, and tutorials to increase your skills at Google Sheets.
The revenue is spiky as it’s mainly sold as a lifetime price. I have only added a monthly access price within the past year. Mostly, I sell templates, lifetime memberships to a video library, tools, workshops and consulting.
Why did you start teaching people about Google Sheets?
I worked for 5 years at a startup from the bottom to “Director of Digital Operations” which means that I ran the Google Sheets for the company. Slowly and steadily I kept making more and more sheets at this startup that operated more and more of the business.
The big break was only 2 weeks into the job when I coded up the first line of Apps Script that moved one row of data from one tab to another based on a status entry. It was a basic sort of CRM that the company had been using for 6 months prior. I helped make it easier to use, and automated some nasty little copy/paste thing that people kept messing up.
But ultimately I just kept making more and more sheets. I made sheets that calculated Influencer Marketing rates of quarter million dollar influencer campaigns on TikTok and YouTube. This was around 2014/2015.
After leaving that company, I went out on my own. My own products just kept failing and feeling like I was flailing about, I started BetterSheets as a 24 hours project. I just wanted to ship something. I was recently told in early 2020 that my spreadsheets just looked different. I thought it would be fun to make a Dribbble for Google Sheets to inspire others but then I ended up recording 8 videos and making it into a tutorial/course style site.
What do you think about people like Miss Excel?
She’s executed a TikTok and PR strategy that is just a masterclass. Her actual courses go for almost $1k and she has extensive experience in enterprise training. Her approach of not coming from a place of teaching but more having fun was great. She danced her way into the hearts of many excel users.
I just wish excel didn’t suck. I kid, I kid. It’s excellent. I started on Excel before Google Sheets. I learned Excel VBA 3 years before I learned Apps Script. I was using Excel VBA to automate a ton of work.
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