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"I worked as an accountant for 8 years and utilized Microsoft Excel every day for hours," commences Google Sheets and Apps Script expert educator Ben L Collins. "Almost all my work was performed in Excel but I had no background. I'd done some coding however I had not completed anything with spreadsheets.
"Pretty very early on in my career the boss had asked me to perform a lot of stuff in Excel - 'Combine these tables' et cetera - and I was doing all of it on my own!" His boss showed him a few formulas to make things easier and Ben was able to see that the most important skill to have for any finance-related profession is being able to work with information.
"The those who are able to do it really well have a head start over those who are just bumbling through," Ben continues. I was thinking, "Right, I'm going to need to brush up my skills So I looked up a bunch of websites online including mrexcel.com and chandoo.org They did exactly what I do today, only in Excel fifteen years ago."
The more Ben looked into formulas and spreadsheets, more enthralled he got: "It was this rabbit tunnel that seemed to go further into the depths of darkness." Ben realized that applying some of the coding education from his college days could be a good way to combine different programming languages that work with databases like VBA.
Through over the span of his career as an accountant actually became much more interested in technology and less interested in accounting and finance. "After 8 years of working I thought I'm done I'm done!'. I wasn't quite sure what to do next However, one of my first thoughts was to become a developer," Ben tells me.
It's yWYQFjXiawUjOZ9y Ben L Collins speaking at an evening event
He completed some classes then began to apply for work. "It wasn't a huge success, but through that time I began creating my own website as well as writing pieces. A few of the first articles I wrote were about Google Sheets and they're those that ended up being included in Google's Search." This resulted in a variety of clients requesting and paying freelance jobs.
"In 2014 and 2015 there was some inbound calls that asked, "Hi, can I get help in building this dashboard using sheets?' or 'Can you have a review my spreadsheets for our company and assist me in figuring out ways to improve these formulas ?'."
The task involved Excel, Google Sheets, SQL as well as Tableau. "It was any work really however it was an opportunity to consider"Maybe there's something to be found here. Maybe I can be an independent contractor instead of going back to the old job' . I didn't wish to return to being an accountant!" Ben smiles. "I would like to stay up in the field of technology and innovation."
Goodbye accounting, hello education
In the beginning, the education site General Assembly was just a start-up and it was offering vocational courses for developers and data analysts. "They were introducing a part-time data analysis course. Since I had taken a class in their class as a participant in one of their developer courses and I was familiar with the staff that was there. When they introduced this course on data and were looking for instructors. The course was Excel, SQL and Tableau," Ben continues. "I I thought, 'Oh this is exactly the job I've done for the last eight years !'." He went through the interview process and got the job and he taught that course for a few iterations during 2015.
"That got me interested in teaching," Ben recalls. "I'd done some teaching at the college level as a tutor for younger students when I was in my final year." He started including corporate training to his online offering, including selling courses and tutorials. "As I started to grow an audience, in 2017 I figured I'd test my own course to see what happens."
) A course on the Query function in Google Sheets
The class was appreciated very well, enough to convince Ben to create a follow-up course. "I utilized a platform named Teachable since I wanted to have an immediate relationship with my audience and manage that relationship instead of transferring it to a marketplace, such as Udemy."
I did some searching and the name that kept popping to mind was the person who runs the tech newsletter Stratechery, Ben Thompson. He's known as the OG!" Ben laughs. "I joined a few subscriptions to check out how other people such as Flowing Data and Craig Mod were doing this." Ben had been reading their newsletters since he was a kid and I was interested in how they had developed their membership-based businesses. I was thinking, "I want mine to have the same experience.'. I loved the sign-up was so simple and smooth - I thought"I would like that membership experience.'
Moving forward sustainably
To give context, Ben's membership offering currently consists of premium (or "gated") content which is hosted on WordPress and an email newsletter that is sent via email through Kit (formerly ConvertKit). As for content, it centers on Google Sheets which includes products features, updates and other information - and tips to get most value out of the software.
"The coming newsletter will be an in-depth look at some of the new functions that Google introduced in the last season," Ben adds. They're really helpful functions to manipulate data, so there'll be a demonstration on the subject and a link to the Google Sheet template that people can then download themselves. He adds that there will be a live discussion on this. "I use the newsletters to communicate details about times and also to share the Google Meet link for the live session."
If asked about the future, Ben believes that membership will become the core of his company. "I obviously would like to get the majority of people to join because I would like that membership to be my primary product," he says. "I have that model of a library of free content which you then can become a pro member and help me out and receive the extra material."
Z6fYkdbv3aadzawtsO The simulation of a game of chess with Google Sheets
He explains that he used to offer consulting and include ads in his no-cost newsletter, but now he wants to move away from this: "if I can build an audience large enough, it'd be wonderful to let go of the other things. There are a few small areas to tackle, but growing the size of the group is essential. "
He points out that he's got diverse ideas of expanding his offering. "I've had some thoughts at the moment and I'm thinking of doing a better job of broadcasting these live sessions, and we've got initiatives to attract members coming in the next calendar year. The service itself will develop. It's not going to be radically different however we'll be doing more live stuff."
He also says he'd like to discover a better method for members to communicate their data issues they're tackling and the problems they'd like to resolve -- "That could be via 'office hours' or a better means for them to send queries" insofar the method is sustainable and valuable way for all parties involved.
Ben affirms that, at the moment his interactions with his community are done through electronic newsletters. "I recommend that people respond with a message saying 'Hey, tell me the things you're working on'. I love it because it's manageable.
He was known to facilitate forum chats and "cohort courses", working though Google Sheets issues online together as a group. "We did two of them in 2021 while Google Sheets were the talk of the town. It worked really well, but it felt very intensive for the first five weeks of the course that was a "firehose' of questions. This is the first time I've participated in a group like that yet since I'm apprehensive that after I've turned the switch on, I'll be unable to truly shut off. It's something I'd like to think through, how can I do it in a sustainable way?
"I was not even pledging live sessions when I first started, as I was thinking, 'Just launch and observe what the response will be. See if I enjoy making it work before I make promises about all the time. It's working well! He's keen to include live sessions to the mix "They're enjoyable and the participants get a lot of value out of these sessions. Let's see how it goes!"
Ben hosting the Zoom sessions for his clients
"Right now I'm teaching topics: I'll pick a topic and we'll cover that for the live lesson," he continues. But in the cohort courses it was more of an open forum: "People would come in and say, 'Hey, here's the formula I'm having trouble understanding I'm stuck on this formula', and we'd discuss the issue live, and others could watch. We'll be looking into in the coming year. It's a great way for people to participate."
As a final thought, he believes there's a possibility that a Q&A-style forum is certainly a possibility, too but says: "I just want to ensure that I am able to do the task in a way that doesn't overload me." This sounds like Ben is already on the road to building an ongoing and solid friendship with his group. The ability to sustain the relationship is crucial to a successful membership "Little actions - we'll add more over time!" he smiles.
Additional information
Ben Collins is an educator as well as a writer, programmer and co-founder of The Collins School of Data. Ben Collins creates online classes and writes about Google Workspace tools. I concentrate on analysis of data as well as automation, making use of Google Sheets and Apps Script.
Ben L Collins' website
He enjoys creating lightweight apps that are data-driven for the Google stack: Google Sheets, Looker Studio, Google Apps Script, Forms, Docs, Gmail, etc. For more information go to benlcollins.com.