SaaS in Excel? Building a $1M+ Business Inside a Spreadsheet

Hey fellows 👋

I’m attempting to build something that, on the surface, sounds completely insane: a high-performance BI (business intelligence) tool that challenges the industry giants, Tableau and Power BI—both valued at $10-15 billion.

And I’m doing it entirely inside Excel, using nothing but VBA.

💰 The Cost? If I hired a team, this project would cost well over $1M+ to build.
💡 The Solution? Go at it completely solo.

What I’m Building (and Why It’s Different)
I’m pushing Excel far beyond its limits by focusing on these key areas:
✅ Graphics – Total creative freedom to build and manipulate any visual component.
✅ Speed & Performance – Dashboards should feel instant, even with complex visuals.
✅ Customization – No predefined layouts; absolute control over every element.

The Challenge
Excel and VBA don’t have built-in solutions for any of this. So I need to create everything from scratch—my own version of:
🚀 HTML → For structuring UI elements.
🎨 CSS → For styling and effects.
⚡ JavaScript → For interactivity & automation.

It’s a constant battle between reinvention and optimization, but that’s what makes this project exciting.

Where I’m At Now
🛠 6 months in on an estimated 18-24 month journey.
📖 Documenting everything in my blog, where I share the technical, business, and strategic decisions along the way.

If you’re curious, check out my latest post:
🔗 https://www.acedbi.com/3-planning-a-large-scale-excel-saas-part-2-technical-part/

Would love to connect with others tackling massive solo projects—drop a comment if you're working on something ambitious! 🚀