2023 W50 - 2023 in Review

Humberto Ayres Pereira, CEO and Co-Founder, Rows

Every week I post about one thing that happened at Rows. We're building in public!

Hello! Time for a web-favorite, the year in review.

Without further ado, here it is:

Revenue. 2023 was the year we revamped our whole pricing strategy, and started charging companies. As a result, revenue has been growing organically, topped up by (early) inbound enterprise interest. We built Rows to be free for individual users getting started with our new layout and Integrations, and paid for companies who want to connect (liberate) all their data, which means getting unlimited Integrations and Premium Integrations (such as OpenAI). It's a big step for a spreadsheet platform, and that's why it's el numero uno.
Growth. While Revenue is surely the most serious step we made, user growth has been the largest z. We grew .. a lot, 10-20x across the board. This happened as a direct result of heavy experimentation, which landed us 2 major wins: Our AI Analyst✨ and the Loginless experience (no homepage). Lot's of other things didn't work so well, delivering null gains or just small gains, but that's the job.
Product. It was a record year for product launches, and we matured a lot. There were almost 40 big releases, and hundreds of small ones. The highlights are:
1. Help users manage data
  1. New Integrations: OpenAI, BigQuery, Snowflake, Redshift, Google Analytics 4, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Notion! We also did many improvements in other existing Integrations.
  2. Data flow: we shipped our current Data Tables solution that helps users connect to Integrations with a super-easy, and guided, flow. Formula columns are new too, as are simplified error notifications, and picking individual values from a data source.
  3. Import and Export: because csv, xlsx and xls are still out there. You can also drop a file directly into the editor.
2. Analysis
  1. The AI Analyst✨: We shipped the first AI assistant of any spreadsheet available to everyone, and that paid off and keeps paying off! Ask questions, get answers.
  2. Charts: we completed our set of essential charts with the Combo Chart, plus we added options to hide gridlines, and axis, and made charts responsive, for mobile sharing.
  3. Pivot Tables: we shipped our new vision for Pivots, that first class citizen of every analysis!
3. Sharing
  1. Simplified Embeds: Embeds are now one click away from every Table and Chart, just click the "..." panel!
  2. Rows everywhere: We have embedded the full Rows editor inside Puter.com, and more platforms are coming.
4. Others
  1. Sign-up: Loginless was another clear winner, because after we removed the homepage our conversion rate more than doubled. The world needs and wants a free spreadsheet for quick calculations and serious reports! We also added one-click signup with Google.
  2. New Paid plans: we re-wired our offering so that the Free plan now includes up to 3 Integrations, and is keeping unlimited users (load them all now); the Paid plans include unlimited Integrations, plus Premium Integrations like Open AI and our Company data, and faster data refreshing!
  3. Productivity and UX: we delivered a smoother pixel-scrolling upgrade to the grid, including floating headers and freeze panes. A new sum-up bar that does quick computations on your ranges of cells. Cell hyperlinks. New formats for currencies, date & time. And improved searching, filtering and sorting. We also shipped Footnotes and Sub-titles for Tables and Charts, which make reports richer than ever. Finally, we delivered big speed improvements on the computation platform and on individual functions with range operations (SUMIFS et al).
  4. For Pros: we shipped the Rows API and connectors in 3rd party platforms (Zapier, Make, PowerBI). We also improved our AUTOFILL() function, plus a bazillion of changes to functions, and new functions (like IFS()).

This would not have been possible without our Team, which put in some serious thought and hard work into all of this. If we're to overcome the incumbents Excel and Sheets, we need all hands on deck, and we got them. Users expect nothing less.

If 2024 goes like 2023, we're sure to make a permanent dent in the software world.

- Humberto

Note: This week I will take 4 days off to recharge. 2024 is coming!