We are Sourcetable
Sourcetable is building an operating system for the future of work, starting with a spreadsheet that syncs and centralizes all business data.
The future of spreadsheets is spreadsheets.
We believe that spreadsheets, despite their flaws, will continue as the dominant medium where work gets done. Whether they’re used for analysis, reporting, project management, workflow automation, as a database, or as a coding platform, spreadsheets are here to stay.
And for good reason! Spreadsheets are a superb thinking tool and excellent scaffolding for the mind. They are user friendly, universally understood, collaborative, powerful and interoperable.
Despite this, mainstream spreadsheet platforms have failed to evolve to meet the demands of modern knowledge workers. They are slow, static, siloed affairs where workbooks are emailed around the office and CSV download/upload loops are the status quo for data transfer. Application ecosystems emerged as an afterthought, leaving users to approximate dynamic systems through a brittle kludge of plugins, scripts and undocumented office lore.
In the face of this stagnation, ad hoc solutions are filling the void with application-specific tools for every department, form and function. Little by little, modern workers are forced to navigate an increasingly fragmented knowledge base as well as a morass of coordination problems and second order impacts.
Instead of piecemeal approaches, what we need is an evolution of the spreadsheet itself.
At Sourcetable, we’re building a networked spreadsheet for the contemporary knowledge worker and the modern web. A spreadsheet that is always-on, always connected, and takes advantage of the latest technology advances.
We are excited to extend the work of Bricklin, Frankston and others to reinvigorate spreadsheets and re-establish their role in the future of work, starting with some core pillars:
- Accessible — I should be able to centralize, store and access documents of arbitrary file size. Everyone on my team should be able to access that data without having to learn how to code.
- Networked — I should be able to analyze data from the databases and SaaS tools used to run my business. This data should be fresh (timely), non-brittle, and reliable as a source of truth.
- Collaborative — I should be able to work with different teams and stakeholders within the same application. Discussions, documentation and data metadata should all be discoverable in the same place.
- Powerful & expressive — I should be able to analyze large files and datasets without interminable slowness. For more advanced use cases, I should be able to use any language I like, such as Python, for analysis and building dynamic applications.
- Intelligent — The spreadsheet should understand me. It should analyze my data, summarize insight, suggest formulas, clean data and fix errors errors with ease. It should feel like having an analyst in your pocket.
Sourcetable is currently in private beta with early access for individuals and companies able to provide ongoing product feedback. If you’d like early access, request it here.
There’s a lot to do, and we’re in it for the long haul with a tight-knit team of experienced technologists. If you’re interested in building the future of spreadsheets, get in touch.
