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9 Comments

Has anybody monetized a Google Sheet with code? How? Can you help me monetize mine?

It is an option strategy calculator for investors: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11c_PBFt-cz6rg-yh6FAIatxJv2C5R-NU2jkY34UyOl4/edit?usp=sharing

posted to Icon for group Looking to Partner Up
Looking to Partner Up
on December 12, 2019
  1. 1

    Hi Romancito, let's have a chat ;)
    email: [email protected]

  2. 1

    You should create a gsheet addon for the Gsuite marketplace.

    This is probably quickest based on your answers below. You could later build a web app later if it does well in Gsuite marketplace.

    https://developers.google.com/gsuite/marketplace/overview

    1. 2

      How shall I do that? The Gsuite jerga sounds like chinese to me :(

      1. 1

        You can hire a Google Apps Script developer or find a tech-cofounder. A couple of guys here might be able to help:
        https://www.indiehackers.com/post/i-have-an-idea-for-a-g-suite-addon-and-would-need-a-tech-co-founder-40cc8bc0f3

  3. 1

    Hi Roman,

    It looks interesting. Some questions:

    1. When did you start with this Google Sheet and approx how many people have you shared this Google Sheet with?
    2. How many of them have used it? Does Google provide the numbers of clones or anything?
    3. Using a web app would be a far better experience but how far can the functionality be taken?
    4. How much would be the (ongoing?) cost to get the market data (as you have mentioned in your other comment) and how more useful will it be to the customers after that?

    Thanks.

    1. 2
      1. I don't remember the exact date... around 1.5-2 years ago. I shared it in a couple of Telegram spanish groups of option trading (one with around 16 people, the other one bigger, maybe around 400 users, but obviously not everyone have used it).
      2. I asked myself this question. There is no direct way of knowing this, so I introduced changes in the last version in such a way i get a log of what users are doing and their mail address. This log is sent to a telegram bot that only I have access to. It seems almost nobody is using (or at least not the latest version).
      3. I agree that a webapp could improve the experience, but still can't provide market data, which would be the best possible improvement. The best choice for that is a desktop application. I could combine both, using the webapp as a marketing tool to make people discover the desktop tool. Nevertheless, given the amount of users in the sheet, maybe it is not worth to develop.
      4. Giving market data in a webapp is expensive, since we are talking about broadcasting to everyone. You have to contract it market by market, and each one could be from 2,000$ to 10,000$ year, maybe more. If I just link a desktop app to the client's own broker account, I could get his own data stream, but that requires that the user trusts that your application will not make any undesired change to the account. This is how NinjaTrader tool works for example.
      1. 1

        Thanks for the answers.

  4. 1

    Do you have clients using it already and why would they not use the option play calculators on their trading platforms?

    1. 1

      Some tried it, but it is not being continuously used. Maybe bad marketing is to be blamed here. The thing is that many trading platforms option play calculators just suck, as it is the case for Interactive Brokers (in fact I coded this for my own usage, since IB's sucks). And propietary software for option trading is VERY expensive for individual trading. So I think there is market there.

      Main problems: can't offer market data without paying for that data, so a web app can't be provided without manually introduced data (as it is the case in my sheet), and only in the case of desktop apps you can connect to your own broker API, but the code is more complex and each broker requires its own implementation (and in some/most cases, you must request permission if you want to commercialize the software).

      That's why I limited myself to a Google Sheets app with manual inputs.

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