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"I was an accountant for eight years and used Microsoft Excel every day for hours," commences Google Sheets and Apps Script an expert teacher Ben L Collins. "Almost everything I did was done using Excel but I did not have any background. I'd coded however I had not completed any spreadsheet-related work.

"Pretty very early on in my career the boss had asked me to do a bunch of things in Excel"Combine these tables' et cetera - but I was doing everything by hand!" His boss showed him some formulas that could help make things easier and Ben realized then and there that the most important skill to have for any financial profession is simply knowing how to manipulate data.

"The people who can achieve this feat are leagues ahead of the rest of us, that are a mess," Ben continues. I figured, "Right. I'll need to build up with these abilities and I came across numerous websites such as mrexcel.com as well as chandoo.org - these people were doing what I'm doing currently, however using Excel fifteen years ago."

The more Ben was able to look at spreadsheets and formulae, the more enthralled he got: "It was this rabbit tunnel that seemed to go into deeper and deeper." He realized that applying some of the training in coding from his college days could be merged with different programming languages that work with databases such as VBA.

Through the course of his professional career as an accountant actually became much more interested in technology and less interested in finance and accounting. "After more than eight years I thought, 'I've had enough to have enough!'. I was unsure of what I could do next However, one of my initial ideas was to change careers and become a developer." Ben tells me.

Ben L Collins speaking at an event

He attended a few classes, and began applying for positions. "It wasn't a huge success, however, I was creating my own site and writing pieces. The first article I composed were on Google Sheets and were those that were noticed by Google Search." They brought about a lot of clients requesting and paying freelance jobs.

"In the years 2014 and 2015, there was an inbound flow of traffic asking, "Hey, could you assist me in creating the dashboard using sheets?' or "Can you take a look at my company spreadsheets and assist me with figuring out the best way to improve those formulas? ?'."

The project involved Excel, Google Sheets, SQL as well as Tableau. "It wasn't really work at all but it was enough of a sign to say, 'Maybe there's something here. Maybe I can be a freelancer instead of returning to my previous job' . I did not intend to go back to the accountant job!" Ben smiles. "I would like to stay up with the technology and development."

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 training courses specifically for developers and data analysts. "They had launched a part-time data analysis course. As I'd taken a course with them as a student on one of their developer courses, I knew the team there. When they introduced this data course and were looking for instructors. The course included Excel, SQL and Tableau," Ben continues. "I said, 'Hey it's exactly my job over the past eight years. !'." He completed the interview process and got the position and taught that course for a few iterations in 2015.

"That made me want to start teaching once more," Ben recalls. "I'd taught at college, as a mentor for young students while I was in the final year." He began adding in some corporate training into his online offering, including the sale of tutorials and classes. "As I was beginning to gain an audience, in 2017 I thought I should create my own course and see what happens."

) A course on the Query function in Google Sheets

The class was appreciated quite well - well enough to encourage Ben to create a follow-up course. "I made use of a website named Teachable as I wanted to establish an intimate connection with my students and be the one to own that relationship rather than hand that over to an online marketplace such as Udemy."

I decided to do some digging and one name that kept popping up was the man who manages the tech magazine Stratechery, Ben Thompson. Ben Thompson is the OG!" Ben laughs. "I signed up for some accounts myself, to find out how other people such as Flowing Data and Craig Mod had done the same thing." Ben had been getting their free newsletter since he was a kid and I was interested in the way they implemented their membership businesses. I was thinking, "I want mine to be just like that.'. I loved it was easy to sign up and effortless - I thought, 'I want that member experience.'

Moving forward sustainably

To give context, Ben's membership service currently comprises premium (or "gated") content that is located on WordPress as well as a premium electronic newsletter sent through emails through Kit (formerly ConvertKit). For information, it's based on Google Sheets and includes information about product features and updates - and tips to get most value out of the software.

"The next newsletter is an in-depth look at some of the new functions which Google released last the year." Ben adds. These are really useful functions for manipulating data so there'll be a demonstration on the subject with a link to a Google Sheet template that people could download for themselves. The author also mentions that the live discussion on this. "I use the newsletters to share information about the date and time, as well as to share the Google Meet link for the live session."

If asked about the future of his business, Ben thinks membership could be the mainstay of his company. "I definitely would like to get many more members as I want the membership to become the primary product," he says. "I am able to offer an archive of content for free which you then can become a pro member and support me and get more information."

The simulation of a game of Chess using Google Sheets

He explains that he used to provide consulting services and also put ads on his newsletter but he aims to get away from that: "if I can build an audience large enough, it would be great to rid of everything else. There's some small things to work on but growing the size of the group is essential. "

He mentions that he has diverse ideas of expanding the scope of his services. "I've come up with a few ideas currently that I could do more effectively giving these live events to members as well as we've plans to bring members in coming up next year. The software itself will change. It's not going to be radically different however, we'll continue to do live-streamed stuff."

He adds that he wants to find a better way to allow members to discuss information about the kinds of issues they're tackling and the problems they'd like to resolve for the future "That could be via 'office hours' or a better method to ask queries" - as long that it's done in a sustainable and valuable way for all parties involved.

Ben affirms that, for the time being all interactions with his audience are carried out via electronic newsletters. "I actually encourage people to send me a note saying 'Hey let me know what you're currently working on' - I like it because it's manageable.

He would offer forums chats and "cohort courses", working though Google Sheets issues online together in a group. "We took two of these in 2021 when Google Sheets were the talk of the town. The course was very successful however it was very intensive for the first five weeks that the class was in - it was a 'firehose' of questions. I haven't done this community as such yet, because I'm wary of after I've turned on the system, it will be impossible to completely switch off. It's something I'd like to think through, how can I accomplish this with a long-term perspective?

"I was not even pledging live streams when I initially began, thinking, 'Just launch and observe what the response is. Check if I like making it work before I make promises about all the time.' But it's going great! He seems keen to add live events "They're fun and people really get a lot of value from these sessions. We'll see how that goes!"

Ben hosting the Zoom sessions for his clients

"Right this moment I'm teaching topics such as: I'll choose a subject and we'll cover that for the live session," he continues. But in the cohort courses it was more of an open-forum: "People would come in and ask, 'Hey, here's the formula I'm stuck on We'd go through it live and other people were able to watch. That's something we'll look at in the coming year. It's a great way for people to participate."

He concludes that perhaps a Discord Q&A-style forum is certainly an option, however he clarifies: "I just want to ensure that I am able to do this in a manner which doesn't overwhelm me." It sounds like Ben has already started working towards establishing the longest-lasting and long-lasting friendship with his group. It is our opinion that maintaining a relationship over time is crucial to a successful participation "Little steps - we'll just add more over time!" he smiles.

More information

Ben Collins is an educator as well as a writer, programmer and the founder of The Collins School of Data. He creates online courses and write about 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 apps that are data-driven for the Google stack. These include: Google Sheets, Looker Studio, Google Apps Script, Forms, Docs, Gmail, etc. To learn more, go to benlcollins.com.