Are you an A1 or B2 Kind of Sheet Guy?

When it comes to sheets you're either on Team A1 or Team B2, right?

Meet Hugo Hamel. He uses Google Sheets every day. He sells a template for keeping track of finances. That's income and expenses.  That's easy to manage even if you're not an accountant or a bookkeeper.

Join me in talking with him about none other than sheets.

This is Episode 1 of Sheet Talking.

I sit down with guests each week and just talk about Spreadsheets

Hugo runs Sheeld Financial Suite

Here are a few templates he has for sale.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Andrew: In this episode of Sheet Talking, we are talking with Hugo Hamel of Sheeld Financial Suite. He sells Sheets. He uses Sheets. He is a spreadsheet guy, we'll get into, is he an A one or B2 kind of , we talk about if, if Google Sheets is F1 racing, what is Excel? You'll find out in this episode of Sheet talking.

[00:00:21] Andrew: Do you talk about spreadsheets with people normally or is it like something you're like, what is there to talk about, about spreadsheets?

[00:00:32] Andrew: Good question. Um,

[00:00:33] Hugo: like, to be honest, I don't. It's weird to say, like, I don't really talk about sheets, like per se, but they're really part of my kind of being like there. I think there's like, as of now in this, in this soci in this society or in the, you know, digital world, there's like two type of people, a notion, people, and there's a coolship, people

[00:01:00] Hugo: And for some reason I don't like notion. I think, I think that it is combination of like the complexity of it. Like you have to like configure all of it, but at the same time, I just don't want to learn. I, I don't want to get into like learning it. And I think that it's like, Someone that knows how to code that would like, would use a no-code tool.

[00:01:27] Hugo: I don't know. Like, I'm just, well, I know how to build a spreadsheet, so I'll just use a spreadsheet. So I just use spreadsheets for everything. Um, I have a spreadsheet to keep track of, like my groceries. I have a spreadsheet, like how much do I pay for each item? And then in which, in which grocery did I pay the item at that specific price?

[00:01:47] Hugo: Yeah. So I know which, which, which item? Like, it, it, it's pretty much to know like, um, like the baseline of what is the, the cost of a specific item. And I know like if it's, if it's on sale, if it's seasonal, like I know like what type of price I should expect to, to pay. And I know that by doing this, I'm not being quote unquote like fooled by like marketing tactics of groceries,

[00:02:12] Hugo: And, uh, I mean like sometimes you have an apple, it's like, , let's say 99 cents for an apple, and then you have the same apple like two days after like $3. You're just like, well, this is the same apple. Like, why would I pay more? It's just like three days after. Check

[00:02:29] Andrew: your spreadsheet every time you pay for something.

[00:02:32] Hugo: Um, not exactly. It's more like once, once a

[00:02:37] Andrew: a week you realize, oh, I got screwed on these apples last week from this grocery store. Like, it doesn't even help you like buy the apples. It just tells you, oh, you got screwed.

[00:02:48] Hugo: No, it's not, it's, it's not really being screwed. It's more about like, if I'm, if I'm at the grocery store and I'm just like, Okay, like, this Apple looks like at a good price.

[00:02:57] Hugo: Is it really a good price? And I just bought my phone. I checked it on the spreadsheet Apples. Yeah, you check

[00:03:01] Andrew: it, you check it.

[00:03:03] Hugo: I do check it when I, I'm uncertain. When I'm uncertain. I do check it, but I, I kind of like the more you grocery shop, the more you know the prices of things like, kind of by heart.

[00:03:12] Hugo: So I don't always have to to check it out. But like, because my partner and I, we, we both like pay separately. Like we, we kind of shared expenses, but we kind of like, let's say one time she's gonna pay for me and then the other time I'm gonna pay for her. So we kind of have to keep track of, of that. So I have also built the spreadsheet for, for us, because we have a joint bank account, but at the same time we have our own personal bank account, but we rarely use the joint bank account.

[00:03:42] Hugo: We just, you know, pay with our credit card. So it kind of became harder to, um, To just, uh, like keep track of expenses because you know who, who paid what. And within that, you know, grocery, uh, trip that we did, who, like, within that order, that specific receipt, like which items are like more for me or more for her.

[00:04:06] Hugo: So we, like, I've built a spreadsheet to keep track of like, you know, what was what and it's all of these things. So yeah, definitely like , it's kinda part of my life and everything. .

[00:04:16] Andrew: Yeah. When, when you said, when you said that there was two types of people, I honestly thought you would say there are people who use spreadsheets and there's those who happen to use spreadsheets.

[00:04:27] Andrew: Like I didn't expect that it would be sheets or notion because like also putting people on either sheets or notion, uh, is like, oh yeah. , is it Google Sheets or is it just like spreadsheets are like, is it Google Sheets or Notion? And those are the only two people that exist except there's like a billion Excel users as well.

[00:04:48] Andrew: we, we'll never talk about them. Like they don't, they're spreadsheet users, but those kinds of spreadsheet users.

[00:04:56] Hugo: I, I talking about Excel. Um, for some reason, for me, Excel is like a dinosaur. It's like, It's not, it's not meant to be used anymore. It's

[00:05:08] Andrew: already gone. The ways of VisiCalc, it's already in the Lo Lotus 1 23 era.

[00:05:13] Andrew: It's .

[00:05:16] Hugo: It's just the, the only like use case I see wise a business would continue to use, uh, like Excel is because they do not trust like Google or they want to have like, data, data stored locally. So they have like a, a shared network where they have the Excel file that being shared, or the other use case, the ICF to use Excel is when you want to handle a lot like really heavy like documents, more like, you know, data scientist, um, and things like that.

[00:05:46] Hugo: Otherwise, I'm, I'm just like, why would you use Ex Excel when you can, can use Google Sheet? And Google Sheet has so much more benefits because you know, it's connected to the internet

[00:05:57] Andrew: in a way. Exactly. I mean, it, I feel like it, it goes along the age line too. Like I feel like. two things. I would not trust an accountant who doesn't use Excel.

[00:06:10] Andrew: Like, that's one thing. , if I, if my accountant used Google Sheets, I would be like, uh, can I get a different accountant please? But like, there's also an age thing. I think it's like 40 and Up is Excel and like 25 to 35 is dominant for like Google Sheets. At least right now. This is like 2023. Right? This would be crazy if this, if this is being watched like 10 years later, people in 2033 are like, what's Google Sheets?

[00:06:43] Andrew: floppy discs. Yeah. Like where we're, we're, we're, uh, we're bashing at how old X Excel is and people in 2033 are like, these people do not know what's coming. like, um, No, but yeah, I, I mean, I see this in actual analytics and like my business , I don't, I don't know if, if you, if you look at demographics as well, but I find that people mainly, uh, in better sheets and around what I do is like 25 to 35 years old, and then I can't, I, I feel like I can't convince someone over 40 to go to Google Sheets.

[00:07:23] Andrew: They're like, I use Excel. Why would I ever use anything else?

[00:07:28] Hugo: Right. That's that's a good point. It's just like, I don't know, like Excel for me is inconvenient because you have to buy a license for it.

[00:07:41] Andrew: You still do in 2023 or in, in thir in 2033. Is it open? Is it open source now? Um, well

[00:07:49] Hugo: you have like open, open office.

[00:07:52] Andrew: Yeah. Which I used. I, I used that was the open source one. The free one, right. I used that. Yeah. I think Nice. Snap,

[00:08:03] Hugo: haven't, haven't used it since like high school, so I don't know. Like, it seems like quite nice now, but at the time that was really like dodgy .

[00:08:14] Andrew: Yeah. I mean, I keep talking about how free Google Sheets is, and I don't know if it's free anymore.

[00:08:19] Andrew: I like, this is a weird dichotomy, like in my life, like I pay for workspace, Google workspace, so I pay $6 a month. Yeah. For a few accounts. So more than $6 a month. But um, , like Google Sheets is still free, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I just don't, can't imagine, like, I keep talking about how it's free, but I'm like away from it.

[00:08:48] Andrew: Like I'm not, I don't use a free, I mean, I use a free one. I have a free

[00:08:52] Hugo: Gmail account. Yeah, yeah. No, I, I don't see why Google would, would not put like, would would be be like why it would be paid, you know? I think

[00:09:02] Andrew: there's so many. Open Office is free, uh, Google Sheets is free ish. And then Excel you have to pay for and Excel online as well.

[00:09:10] Andrew: You have to have a license, right?

[00:09:13] Hugo: Uh uh it's a good

[00:09:15] Andrew: question. We have not even checked. We don't care. , we've never even tried.

[00:09:21] Hugo: It's a good question. Cause I think that if you do have a Microsoft like email address, you do have some, uh, sort of like, at least visualization of document online. If you go like on outlook.outlook.com and like you'll mail, you'll log into your emails and then, cause I, I still have my email from, from Outlook like way, way a long time ago.

[00:09:47] Hugo: Um, and uh, I think that you can, can you kind of play around, actually I can double check at the moment if at, at, at the same time, but I'm pretty sure that, that you can, um, like at least visualize documents or even maybe

[00:10:04] Andrew: Excel. But I do find people are very steadfast in their spreadsheet

[00:10:10] Hugo: software. You do have actually a Excel online that is free if you have a, uh, Microsoft, um, then, you know, email address I call. So

[00:10:21] Andrew: it's similar to Gmail. If you have like a Gmail account, if you have an Outlook account, you can get Excel. If you have a Gmail account, you can get Google sheets.

[00:10:31] Hugo: Right. The only difference that you don't have is you don't have the software. Like do I I think to have the software like installed on your computer, that's when you need a license. But that's good to know that, that you, you can have like Excel online. It's just, it's just that, it's like I don't, I don't, I don't, I, I think that Microsoft is just enterprise level.

[00:10:54] Hugo: Mm-hmm. , and I'm not an enterprise level type of person. I just don't like enterprise level softwares and tools. Like, for example, I would not use like, um, like Salesforce or I would not use like HubSpot or I would not use, um, what was the other one? Par Pyra. Parda. Parda. Like the marketing. Salesforce marketing

[00:11:19] Andrew: and Salesforce.

[00:11:21] Andrew: I've never, yeah, they have

[00:11:22] Hugo: the software. Um,

[00:11:26] Andrew: for marketing, I, it doesn't matter. I know Salesforce.

[00:11:33] Hugo: Pardot. Yeah, it's Pardot. That was right. Pardot. Its like a marketing and automation that is owned by Salesforce. Yeah. And anyway, all of these tools, I just think that they're kind of overkilled the same thing as, um, yeah, like Excel for me is just, I don't know, it's just, it's just not, it just doesn't vibe with me in a way.

[00:11:56] Hugo: It's just too, too, uh, too old school and not like convenient enough. Like you, like I, I could see myself using Excel online, like for, for some use case, but I don't see the, the benefit of just converting into, you know, Excel online. I think that Google Sheet has more benefits because you can, you can easily, like, there's more, there's more APIs, uh, access done so far.

[00:12:21] Hugo: Mm-hmm. , um, you know, you can collaborate at the same time on the same file. Like, I'm not even sure if Excel can do that, but I don't know. Like it's,

[00:12:31] Andrew: there's got to in 2023 , we're in the future now. I, I feel like if you sell an enterprise software and you're like selling to a large company that is collaborative, like it has to be collaborative.

[00:12:44] Andrew: I like, I literally don't know. Like I don't use Excel anymore. I used it like 10 years ago and yeah, I coded in V B A like 10 years ago, and now I look at, I, I watch like a V B A video or something and I see some code and I'm like, oh my God, I can't believe I used that. That looks, that looks like what might, like assembly language might look like to modern coders.

[00:13:08] Andrew: Like people are like, what is this code?

[00:13:11] Hugo: Yeah. .

[00:13:13] Andrew: Totally. Totally. And you using app Script being like JavaScript, it just feels modern. Like, it feels like, oh, I can, I can read this. Maybe it's also just because it's, I've been coding in now, uh, Google Script for a while, so it feels more familiar. I bet somebody watching this who is like lu, like there's someone watching this who loves spreadsheets and is just like a Excel freak and they're like, I love Excel.

[00:13:39] Andrew: I love V B A, I can't believe you are bashing this as a dinosaur. Like it, it's so great for, they're like, look, think of all the APIs. You can connect with this. And then they list five and they're like, . And you're like, what?

[00:13:56] Hugo: Yeah, no, I'm, I'm pretty sure that like, you know, if, if, if I would be to like have a, to do a deep dive, dive on on Excel and you know, I would probably like enjoy myself at some point, but I.

[00:14:09] Hugo: I'm just in, in a place where I don't want to do that. Deep dive into it. Yeah. And, um, I don't see the, the real value of, of doing it because like truly out of all of the better users, um, how many of how many people have, you know, asked you about things regarding Excel or you know, how can I do that in Excel?

[00:14:35] Hugo: Or how can I export this, this spreadsheet in Excel? Or how, like, you know, how can I do that in Excel? Is there anyone that ex ask

[00:14:40] Andrew: you that? Well, the peop okay, so there's a weird thing that happens and this happens too many times then I can count because, and, and you'd be surprised, is that people will ask me an Excel question.

[00:14:51] Andrew: They will ask me a question, they will reference Excel. They will say ex in Excel. They will ask me a full question and then I reply. I'm like, I, I don't, I don't know this answer. I am, I'm, I do Google Sheets. It, it says better sheets, and then. Everything I do is about Google Sheets and they're like, I am asking you about Google Sheets.

[00:15:11] Andrew: And I look back at the question and it says Excel. It explicitly says Excel. And it's just a ch a switch of words. Like they're used to saying Excel as if it were spreadsheet software. They meant Google Sheets, but they explicitly wrote Excel. Right. I,

[00:15:30] Hugo: I guess, I guess it's the same thing as like people calling like tissues, Kleenex,

[00:15:35] Andrew: I guess E Exactly.

[00:15:36] Andrew: It's exactly. And, and I just cannot get over it. It's such a weird little pet peeve of mine because like, it'll always be like a weird question too, where like, if they literally just flipped Excel in Google Sheets, like you could still figure it out. Like if it, if it literally was like a real Google Sheets question and they just flipped the word, I would figure it out.

[00:15:58] Andrew: But like, it's a, it's always vague. It's always like, 10 Excel, do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, I don't know. And they're like, you teach this? I'm like, no, I don't . And then I realized, oh, you meant Google sheets. Um, so it's, it's also like a little key to like, okay, this person's a little out of touch, but that's not necessarily bad.

[00:16:23] Andrew: Like, because I do get a lot of people who are coming from Excel that are like genuinely a hundred percent trying to learn Google Sheath. And it's just a, a, a word not spewing. Uh, it, it, it does, it doesn't register that it's wrong to them because they're like, I've used it, the word Excel for 10 years, um, to talk about this spreadsheet.

[00:16:47] Andrew: I'm like, they've never used the word spreadsheet.

[00:16:52] Hugo: I think, yeah. That it just, because it makes it confusing because it's like two different things. Yeah. It's not like, The, the way that I see it is a bit like a copyright infringement in a way of like having, you know, a business called Meta Sandwich and the other one called Meta Social Media. And then you, like, it's just two different things, but you, like, people are just talking about meta instead of like, just talking about the metallics,

[00:17:23] Andrew: the specific thing.

[00:17:24] Andrew: And, and you can always get it by the context. Like, join me in the meta is not gonna be like, I'm gonna go inside the sandwich and meet you. Like, you, you get it from content. It's, it's really like , they're the same thing. It, it's so weird. Um, and, and people coming from Excel, th there is this weird thing too, and, and maybe it's, maybe this is not a bad thing in any way.

[00:17:48] Andrew: I, I, I'm just saying that it is a thing, like people want to do such a specific thing. They're like, I can do this in Excel. They'll say that a lot and. I, I don't have the context, unfortunately. I don't have the context, so I'm like always lost and I'm always like, well, should I learn Excel just to help the people who are coming from Excel?

[00:18:12] Andrew: Like, do I really do I need to become not an expert, but like, no 80% of what's in Excel and then help them come into Google Sheets with that. Um, I you, you were, you were mentioning earlier that like you would never learn Excel, and I'm like, that's actually a really funny YouTube video, but I can only think of the funny version of it where I'm like, I try to learn Excel, like it's like a YouTube video called like Google Sheet Guru tries Excel for the first time and.

[00:18:51] Andrew: But like, we'll, we'll like fake it cuz I, I did use Excel. I used like, I coded Excel vba, but like 10 years ago, right? Like, so I lost Yeah. All context. I, I look at Excel VBA now and I'm like, what is this ? Did I code, did I write? Um, so like, I actually think there is not for, for you, but for me, I think there is an actual genuine, real reason to go and learn Excel, but like, maybe in a performative way.

[00:19:17] Andrew: Like, yeah, no, I mean

[00:19:20] Hugo: it's always good to like, to know what is the, um, like, you know, your, the environment that you swim in, in, in a way, like the city that you swim in. It's good to know.

[00:19:32] Andrew: Um, well if, if you're a sailboat in the Atlantic Ocean, do you really want to go to the Pacific? Like it's rough waters to go from one ocean to another.

[00:19:41] Andrew: Right. , you gotta go around Cape Horn or Cape of Good Hope. No, good Cape of. . Okay. I forgot the other cape. There's two capes right? South, south, I dunno them. Yeah. Half South America, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Like they're rough waters. I, I, I've never heard, heard good things about , those, those waters there, right.

[00:20:04] Andrew: That and that's what it's like going from one ocean to Yeah, it's all the same water, but like, what, what is going on here? . Yeah.

[00:20:14] Hugo: No, I, I, I think I is like, it's good for you to know like what you could be doing in Excel, but at the same time, I don't think that it, it makes sense to like switch to, to, to excel or like learning per se Excel.

[00:20:27] Hugo: Yeah. It's just, let me put it in, in a different perspective. It's like a Formula One driver that have, you know, lots of years of experience into driving cars and then a person, person is like, Maybe I should learn motorcycle because, you know, it's, it's a vehicle to go from one place to another one. Maybe I should, Michelle, maybe I should try to be a professional, like a mobi, like a, what is it again?

[00:20:57] Hugo: The, the name like, um, G G, um, what's the name of motorcycle? Uh, like f1. You have f anyway, you have F1 . Anyway, um, I think it's like model gt, something like that. Mm-hmm. . Um,

[00:21:12] Andrew: sure. And like, we'll never know.

[00:21:15] Hugo: Yeah. I mean, does it make sense for that person to be like, I'm gonna, like, my, my your time is already spread thin in a way.

[00:21:23] Hugo: Like, why would you want to spend more time trying to learn something? I don't have true desire of using and that brings, you know, uh, I don't know.

[00:21:32] Andrew: I would do it as an April Fools joke. I, I think that's a great AP April 1st video is, that I, I try to learn Excel. I mean, I think I did that last year was my April fools joke was I quit Google Sheets.

[00:21:45] Andrew: I can't do that again. I can't do that same thing again. Two years in a row. I switch , I'm

[00:21:53] Hugo: better sheets become better Excel or ex Excel sheets.

[00:21:57] Andrew: Yeah. I don't think I can do that Two, two years in a row. That was my April fir first, last year. Um, uh, but it could be like in the next couple years I could.

[00:22:06] Andrew: That's a great, like April 1st thing I thought, I swear to God. Okay. When you said you were, you were like a race car driver. I thought you were gonna say not, not switch to motorcycles, which is a really good analogy, but I thought like if Michael Schumacher went and like did go-kart racing. ,

[00:22:26] Hugo: yeah. The different, different

[00:22:28] Andrew: beasts, different beast.

[00:22:28] Andrew: Like Michael Schumacher is running the bumper cars at the carnival now, like.

[00:22:36] Hugo: Oh yeah, that would be funny. It be hilarious. Well, there was

[00:22:40] Andrew: movie, your analogy was what way Better . That's like motorcycles and, and

[00:22:45] Hugo: cars. Yeah. There was a movie, a really old movie about with Arnold Schwarzenneger, um, when he used to be like a, like superhero. Like it's like a Christmas movie when his son wants to have like a super, a specific type of like, um, dingle all the way, like yeah.

[00:23:04] Hugo: The, is it the, is that

[00:23:05] Andrew: the movie? Go all the way? Yeah. I just watched it. Three months ago, .

[00:23:10] Hugo: Well, like, like funny, like maybe, maybe he would end up being the superhero of someone because he's driving at the carnival, like, like in the movie of the, with Arnold, where he literally take his son and fly with it.

[00:23:26] Andrew: I mean, so yeah. Who knows? He would not bet against like a race car driver. You wouldn't bet against a race car driver in a, like, go-kart competition. You wouldn't bet against them. Right. But , it's a different vehicle. Right. I like your, I like your analogy much better though that it's a, a motorcycle. Um, but yeah, like have you have, well have, okay, so you sell shield and you sell, you sell a Google Sheet . Template.

[00:23:53] Andrew: Have you had people ask you like, can I get this in Excel? Yeah, yeah.

[00:23:59] Hugo: Uh, actually two or three people have asked me. Mm-hmm. out of like, Close 200 users, like businesses and entrepreneurs that bought a spreadsheet. Um, like maybe like just two or three. So it's really low. Like if I calculate it, how many people is that?

[00:24:16] Hugo: So let's say like hundred 50 or like just get 1%. Yeah, it's like 30. Oops. Yeah, it's about like 2%, 1%, something like that. That's, that's

[00:24:31] Andrew: significant. Really?

[00:24:35] Hugo: Why would I, why would I bother myself about 1%

[00:24:37] Andrew: or 2%? Oh, no. N not, I, I wouldn't say bother you about it, but I mean, it's significant that peop that there's a number of people asking you to do that.

[00:24:45] Andrew: Wouldn't, wouldn't when? I don't know. I mean, I think it's also because there's two types of people that I know that regularly use, uh, Excel, which is, uh, like accountants and also data analysis. Yeah, there's some, there's some, and it's specifically not like the power of Excel, but it's like the specific buttons that you can press on the menu bar that do things that I know like you can do in Google Sheets, but it's not one click button.

[00:25:18] Andrew: Yeah. So people like that and, and then I just, oh, I mean, unfortunately I always think about this. I'm like, okay, so yeah, Excel and Google Sheets can both do it, but Excel has this one button that does this thing, but like there's app script, so you can just write a script and create your own button that'll do that thing.

[00:25:39] Hugo: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That's where I, I think like, Google Sheet is just easier because not only like the language to code, the app script is more modern. Um, but you can do it as well in there. Like you don't have to use like, as you said, like, um, you know, old school dinosaur language like VBA for, for doing that.

[00:26:02] Hugo: Um, but truly the only people that asked me to have it the spreadsheet into like Excel was, were people that just didn't trust Google or just didn't trust to have their data online. Um, that's the only reason why they were asking for it.

[00:26:17] Andrew: Uh, two separate people said that. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. And, you know, I didn't think of that, that angle that like, people don't wanna be online or in the cloud.

[00:26:27] Andrew: Like I think cloud first now that's just my, I'm like, I, it's safer in the cloud than on . My. . That's so interesting.

[00:26:35] Hugo: True. But some people, and this, that's the same reason why some people would not use Google Analytics because they don't want, you know, data sent to a, like a, like one of those, you know, huge corporations mm-hmm.

[00:26:50] Hugo: uh, that almost like run the world. So they just not, they just don't want that. But at the same time, like contents use Excel. But why, like, what's the benefit for our contents to use Excel?

[00:27:01] Andrew: Truly the benefit that they've been using it for 15 years. Like the benefit is they they know it all the time. They know where things are, right?

[00:27:10] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:27:12] Hugo: What, what, what are you, for example, yeah, let's, let's take the account like data analysts or like engineer, like I, I, I get it. It's good to handle really heavy like amount of data and like data sets and all of that. Like, it makes sense, but accountants truly, what is their use case of keeping, using, keeping to use Excel?

[00:27:34] Hugo: Like, well, like what's,

[00:27:35] Andrew: what's I think, I think it's just an agent. I think accountant. I, I mean, I probably know some accountants that are under the age of 30 that do use Google Sheets. Actually, I mean, I should, I, I should say my wife is an accountant and she uses Google Sheets, so, um, , I think it's literally an age thing.

[00:27:55] Andrew: Okay. Makes sense. Like, I mean, if you've used some, and I mean this is for you and me are both susceptible to this. Like if you use something for 10 years, it's hard to move to something else, even if it's a different interface and it's essentially the same thing. And you just have to find where the buttons, where's the button for this thing over here?

[00:28:14] Andrew: It's hard after 10 years to, to figure that out. and you have muscle memory, right? Very true.

[00:28:23] Hugo: Very true. And I guess that's kind of why I, I. , I don't wanna shift into Notion .

[00:28:28] Andrew: Yeah. Well, I, I feel like notion's a whole other thing. I, I, I think notions more like Google Docs than Google Sheets. Um, and Google Docs is adopting some things like, um, oh my God, I forgot the word.

[00:28:43] Andrew: Page.

[00:28:43] Hugo: List is a page list. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the thing with the, the beauty of notion, cause I tried it and like, it's kind of nice, but it is just, it's just in a way like kind of overkill to

[00:29:00] Andrew: use. Yes.

[00:29:01] Hugo: Because like, what's cool with Notion is that you can, you can like have tables. It's a bit like air table.

[00:29:07] Hugo: You can like, have all of your data in one lines and then you can reference that data into different sheets. I mean, not sheets, but like pages. And then you can come, you can, you know, create formulas and, and all of these things. But in truth, like, you know, I underrated there is, um, , there's, um, there's a, like a thread or a channel sub.

[00:29:30] Hugo: It actually, that's the name call it, I sub it called The data is beautiful. I think something like that or like the, the, the quantified self. And people like really like to track data about themself, you know, either like their sleep time or either like the fasting time or whatever it is now. You know, anything related to either bio hiking or just improving oneself.

[00:29:51] Hugo: Um, but I tried it in the past to track all of these things and it's really time consuming unless you find a way to automate all of that. It's time consuming to every day kind of log your data. So I, that, that's why I'm just like, the only reason why I would use Notion is to have all of that data kind of crossmatch and to have like a nice dash dashboard.

[00:30:14] Hugo: But I would still have to enter that data daily and I don't want to have to do that. I tried it in the past and it's just too time consuming for me. Have you, you know, what's, what are your, what are your thoughts on, on that?

[00:30:25] Andrew: a notion or quantifying myself. I don't quantify quantify yourself. I don't really quantify myself.

[00:30:32] Andrew: Um, I always just like look back and be like, oh yeah, I did that. Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Um, which I probably should do more of. I should probably do more tracking. I've built trackers for like daily habits, not Yeah, and dark habits as well, right? Yeah. I, I haven't, well there's dark habits for like tracking bad habits and then there's also track anything which is a click once, and you did that thing for the day, so it tracks how many days you've done it in a streak.

[00:31:01] Andrew: Um, but like I'm always, I think I'm in the same exact boat as you, maybe on a different side of the boat, but in the same boat of, um, like why would I spend an extra hour or two quanti like tracking these things like, , wouldn't I rather just do them or not do them? Or like, like, and this is also, you know, just a spectrum, right?

[00:31:29] Andrew: We're, we're tracking something, but what are we tracking? Are we tracking everything or tracking nothing? And it's a spec. We're all on that spectrum, right? Um, do we track in the past, do we, do we try to budget forward and, you know, we're, we're gonna be somewhere on that, right? Do we do a monthly review?

[00:31:49] Andrew: Some people do a daily, they, they open their planner. They, they write morning pages, and then at the end of the day, they review their, their, they, they write a, they spend an 30 minutes a day writing their morning pages, then they write the plan for the day, then they go to lunch, then they work, and then they're like, oh, did I review the day?

[00:32:09] Andrew: And I'm. , I could just do it instead of like writing down, I could just start doing it and go. Um, that, I think that, right. I mean, some days are good. Right. And maybe it's about discipline or self-discipline. Like the, the people who can quantify themselves are very much more disciplined. But does that then produce better work?

[00:32:31] Andrew: Does it produce good work? Does it produce more work or less work or good or bad work?

[00:32:36] Hugo: I dunno. Good point's a good point. Cause I used to be like robotic. I used to be like, uh, like a robot and I have to follow my schedule. I have to do these things because I did, I, I, I built a spreadsheet for myself to, you know, create, schedule a schedule easily.

[00:32:51] Hugo: Like, just like realign my things, kind of move things around, see how I could, I can do these things. Mm-hmm. . Um, and I used, I used to be really robotic, um, about, you know, and, or let's say strict or, yeah, strict. It could be a, a good. Yeah. Like rigid. Yeah. I have to like do these things if I don't do it. Like I was feeling bad.

[00:33:14] Hugo: Mm-hmm. and I was just feeling negativity into like my, my world of like, it's not like as an entrepreneur you have to have a lot of self-love for yourself. Um, and not always like, you know, you're, you're not doing good job, you're not doing this, you're not like you, you have like, there, there's, there's so many elements that can bring you down in one day regarding like, things that don't go well.

[00:33:44] Hugo: Um, either you compare yourself on other people. Either you're like, you know, a client is leaving you or whatever happens. Like you don't want to be the person that is putting more negativity on you. You want to be like, more positive. And that's kind of why I've kind of added a bit more flexibility in my schedule.

[00:34:01] Hugo: And I've removed these like quantified like self, um, aspect, and I just do like, you know, 15 minutes, it's like 30 minutes where it's always ending up being like, um, 15 minutes, um, like in the morning and evening just to journal like, like how, like what? Like which is journaling about positivity. Like what am I grateful for?

[00:34:24] Hugo: Like what of I proud of myself for? What did I achieve during the day? What could I have I done better? And kind of just the, like the, the power five, which is. , like, what are the the five things I wanna do during, during the day? And that can be like simple things. I just like want, I read a book, like, just wanna make sure that I'm gonna read a book today.

[00:34:42] Hugo: And then at the end of the day, like, I know, and, and sometimes during the day, that kind of guide me during, um, like my, my schedule is more, oh, do I want, like, do I want to skip this thing? Oh, I, I wanna read a book today. And then I wrote literally in the morning, I need to read a, like, I like read a book.

[00:35:01] Hugo: And I was like, uh, okay. Yeah. I said I would read a book. Yeah. I think that like, I'll just take the time to do it instead of just, you know, I don't know, like I'll, I'll watch something on internet or like, whatever, like, well, like while doing something else or it, it just sometimes like just guide me. It be, yeah.

[00:35:16] Hugo: Like without being too strict, it at least tells me, okay, you said this, that you would do this. Uh, you should at least like. , consider that, you know, before making a decision. Consider that you wrote this in the morning. So just don't discard it. Um, but you, you can still make a choice of discarding it if, if it's truly not that important and there's more things more important.

[00:35:36] Hugo: Like, for example, I had worked for a client today. Uh, it took much more time than expected. And, uh, you know, I ended up doing the work until this call and I'm still not done. I have to, you know, add it for tomorrow because the formulas are taking longer and there's like, there's bugs and things that, you know, doesn't know, doesn't work as it should.

[00:35:59] Hugo: It's just like small things that, you know, you just, well, I didn't do that today because this happened, but at least I was conscious and aware that, you know, I was not doing the, the thing, the work.

[00:36:11] Andrew: Yeah, I think I, I think you, you sort of brought that spectrum into the middle, right? There's the spectrum of like, I have to be robotic every five minutes and track that I'm doing everything every five minutes.

[00:36:21] Andrew: Or, Hey, here's the plan for the day. Here's the three things I need to remember. And I like that those plans and that checklist empowers you to go do a good thing, right? Like bring it to pos, back to positivity instead of a negative, like, oh, I didn't do this. Strike me a, a self, uh, flag here.

[00:36:40] Andrew: Congratulations. Um, it's like, no, having the remind, it's only three words. Read a book, but having that in a checklist of that you look at every day, that you have a syst, that you have a system is better than, uh, like if you have a system or not, have a system. It's okay. Be if you end up doing a good thing and have good results.

[00:37:05] Andrew: Most people without a system. We'll blame not having a system for the results they have. But it's actually like, it doesn't matter if you have a system or not. , like these two things are not correlated, but there's a lot of faith we can put into systems. And also a system doesn't have to be an automatic, like reminders and alarms.

[00:37:24] Andrew: It could be a three dot, uh, a three spreadsheet that says read a book today, and that it just has a daily reminder there. There's my spreadsheet, there's my checklist. As entrepreneurs, I think I'm always told, like when I hire, if you hire other people and you try to like create a business, create like SOPs, create checklists, but these things can start with our.

[00:37:50] Andrew: we can, we can help ourselves with these. We don't, we don't necessarily have to have another person. We, we wanna help our future self with checklists, with reminders, standard oper operating procedures that are just like, here's how you do that thing that you do every three months. If you wait three months to do it again, you're like, I mean, do I remember this?

[00:38:14] Andrew: Do I remember all of the nuanced steps? Do I remember this? And then take that three months and collapse it down to a day. Do I remember the three things I wanna get done today, which is read a book, take a cold shower, meditate for 15 minutes, you know? We make fun of, some people might make fun of people who have like that little daily reminder, but it's a great checklist.

[00:38:36] Andrew: It it creates an environment that's beyond yourself now. Now you don't, now you don't blame yourself for forgetting. You're like, oh, I just follow this. I, I, I can succumb, sub subsume myself to this. So it actually creates like a other self that we're like, oh, my boss, which is me, said I have to do these three things before I start working.

[00:39:00] Andrew: That's good mental health. And it's also faith, right? It's also like, I, I don't, there's a lot of people my age and below who are like, atheistic, but they're still looking for some ritual. They're looking for some faith to put into some higher power that's, uh, just one step ahead above them. Not like this godly figure that's like saying you're gonna go to hell or heaven based on your actions.

[00:39:24] Andrew: It's like, no, I wanna go one step further. I want to have a, a mind. Higher than myself that I can go to, that I have faith in that I can do. And it's as simple as starting a little checklist, right? Yeah, totally.

[00:39:39] Hugo: Totally. I I just think like it's, it is just like, it gives you guidance, it clears your head.

[00:39:47] Hugo: Yeah. Like, and it's same thing as planning your day ahead. Like just the day before the, or the week or the, like Sunday for the whole week. Um, it just helps you, it gives you guidance. It doesn't mean that you have to respected by the book, and if it doesn't happen, you're gonna like self-flagellate yourself and you know, it, you don't have to, to do that.

[00:40:06] Hugo: You at least it gives you guidance and it frees your mind to, you know, have more space for other things to come in. Mm-hmm. . And for, I just think that's, that's really healthy to, you know, to create systems. But for me, I use spreadsheets for that. I know, I, I I create this, I, I, it is true. I use, like, I use a spreadsheet to create my schedule.

[00:40:26] Hugo: Create a schedule. I actually made a calculation, it's so long ago, I think, um, that, uh, it's out of, for the last five years, I, that spreadsheet that I, when I created it like five years, I've reviewed my schedule, something like 42 times, which is like an average of like keeping the same schedule for something like a month or two months.

[00:40:50] Hugo: Not more than that. So that's kind of pretty much.

[00:40:56] Andrew: So you created a schedule. What is daily schedule or weekly schedule? Five years. Weekly schedules,

[00:41:02] Hugo: sorry.

[00:41:04] Andrew: Well, weekly schedules. So you have a weekly schedule and you created the sheet five years ago, but you've edited it 42 times in five years. Yeah, something like

[00:41:13] Hugo: that.

[00:41:13] Hugo: Something like that. I would have to re to find a tweet again, but it something like that.

[00:41:17] Andrew: That's, that's not every two months? That's not every month. One month, 12 months, a year is that would be like, uh, yeah, just six weeks every, six, eight weeks.

[00:41:31] Hugo: Oh, may maybe I, maybe I was wrong, but Yeah. May or it's

[00:41:34] Andrew: eight.

[00:41:34] Andrew: It's roughly, roughly It's just over a month. Yeah, like six weeks-ish.

[00:41:45] Andrew: Yeah, I'll, I'll,

[00:41:45] Hugo: uh, I'll find it. Um, but yeah, it's, it, it was some, some like really interesting number. I was just like, huh, that's interesting.

[00:41:52] Andrew: But it's, but it's kept you, um, but it's kept you on a weekly schedule for five years, even though it's changed. Yeah, totally.

[00:42:03] Hugo: Totally. That, that helps. That helps.

[00:42:06] Andrew: But yeah.

[00:42:06] Andrew: Do you feel like it's, um, are you religious at all?

[00:42:11] Hugo: No, I'm not, but I'm spiritual .

[00:42:15] Andrew: Right. I, I think that's spreadsheets, , I'm spiritual to spreadsheets. Like I, I I think, I think our, we we're grasping it, right? We, we are. It's in our DNA that for. , tens of thousands of years we've had religion and we've had this sort of godly idea, but like now it's coming back down to like humanist of like, humans are alone,

[00:42:41] Andrew: Like, we don't have this other thing in the world, but like we wanna create it. Like, that's what the internet ended up ha being. And I think that's also what spreadsheets can be, is like, okay, we have this other thing that exists beyond us and, and it's spreadsheets for us. for spreadsheet people, .

[00:43:02] Hugo: So I found the tweets in the last five years.

[00:43:04] Hugo: I reviewed my schedule 42 times. That's 8.4 times

[00:43:07] Andrew: a year. Sweet. Yeah. Wait, review. You mean just v like look at it or like edit

[00:43:16] Hugo: it? No review. Review, like, so pretty much every time I feel that my schedule is not like in tune with like, how, how I flow towards in the day. I just open my schedule. I mean, I plan my calendar, the time to review my schedule, and then I change things around my schedule.

[00:43:30] Hugo: And then from the, from a spreadsheet, I just, um, transfer that into my Google calendar to, you know, just, uh, have that more in, in, in sync. Um, yeah, I, I have like, now that we're in the Google environment, I have like a calendar, which like where my, my appointments are booked, but I also have a calendar where it is just, you know, called like schedules.

[00:43:53] Hugo: Mm-hmm. , which is just like, it's not, it's just there to tell me in that, in that block of time you like, this block is allocated. This thing. Mm-hmm. And then I can, I can add a task or like what I call, like either non-income producing or income producing. And I can add a task in that blog from the, the right category.

[00:44:14] Hugo: And that category is not a spreadsheet, uh, not spreadsheet. Other, um, Google calendars. So I have plenty of calendars to keep track of all of these things. Lot

[00:44:23] Andrew: of sheets. Lot of calendars. Hey, I have a few, uh, questions before we go. Um Yeah, sure. That are specific to you and you alone. Um, where do you start in a spreadsheet?

[00:44:37] Andrew: Are you an A one person or a B2 person?

[00:44:46] Hugo: I feel like I'm in a bingo

[00:44:52] Hugo: It's a good, really good question. Uh, I, I always start at a one, but always end up at b2, .

[00:45:01] Andrew: Oh, you started a one and end at b2. All right. Um, what's your favorite Google Sheets formula? I think it's filter. Oh, you're a filter person.

[00:45:16] Hugo: Cool. Love it. It's like my second. Yeah. I, yeah. I, I really don't like queries.

[00:45:21] Hugo: Queries are, in my opinion, like, hell,

[00:45:25] Andrew: hell, nightmare. Yeah. Qu I, I like a, absolutely. I've actually been against learning Query because it's one of those like catch-all, like there's some people in, uh, like groups that are like, oh, you can just query this. You can't query that. Just do a query. Just do a query.

[00:45:41] Andrew: And I'm like, O okay. But it's just like programming. It's a new programming language. , like in this one.

[00:45:51] Hugo: Yeah, query is exactly like sql or sql, depending how you wanna call it. .

[00:45:57] Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. It's an, an entire sql, you have to learn SQL in order to use query. Yeah. It, it's crazy. And I knows, the funny thing is I know SQL and I've used Query.

[00:46:07] Andrew: I don't like, I don't act physically repel myself from using it. When it's useful, it's good, but man, I mean, Ben Collins has an entire course about, about query. I'm like, this is some deep stuff here. Like you can go deep on it. Um, but yeah, I love filter. Filter is like one of those things where it just keeps coming up time and time and time again.

[00:46:30] Andrew: It's just so ungodly useful. Um,

[00:46:34] Hugo: use it everywhere. What's yours? What's your favorite

[00:46:36] Andrew: formula? Uh, my favorite is if, I

[00:46:39] Hugo: mean, it's like the, like my, it's like my second favorite in a way. I mean, if you, I use it everywhere. But yeah, filter is like, in my opinion, the

[00:46:47] Andrew: lifesaving one. Yeah. I mean, if, if you're, if you're pragmatic and you're trying to get something accomplished, filter is the number one.

[00:46:57] Andrew: I just love if, because it's so ma, it's just magical. It's like, it, it feels funky and, and you can do things, you can make a sheet feel magical without programming, without anything. I just love that, that like, if is blank is like one of my favorite combinations of my com. My favorite combination is index match, but which is the similar to filter

[00:47:24] Hugo: Yeah, very true. Very true. But if this

[00:47:26] Andrew: thing is a good hot second, what's

[00:47:29] Hugo: the longest? Um, like if, uh, yeah, nested if, how do you Yeah. Like how do you call that again? Nested when you, like you Yeah. Nested. Like what is the longest nesting of if

[00:47:45] Andrew: that you've done. . I don't think I've reached the max. I mean, I, I've reached the max on some, a couple formulas in my, in the last 10 years,

[00:47:55] Andrew: Um, but like, yeah, there's, there's some nested ifs. I, you know what I ended up though getting, I, I, I don't do a lot of nested ifs anymore because of switch.

[00:48:10] Andrew: Wait, what? Switch the formula switch. Yeah. This isn't new to me. . Yeah. Switch. Switch allows you to like, if, if you can say what the if is. So what I found myself doing is a lot of nested ifs weren't really like, really nest. They shouldn't have been nested ifs. It was just like a, a switch between this case or this case or this case or this case.

[00:48:31] Andrew: Like there was already three or four things you knew was gonna happen.

[00:48:36] Hugo: That is so nice to know that they switch. I didn't know. Um, that's amazing. Yeah. But yeah. Actually I might start using switch at some point.

[00:48:45] Andrew: Yeah. Nested diffs are just. I, I literally just debugged someone's nested if two days ago they were like, why is this, why is this formula not doing what I wanted to do?

[00:48:56] Andrew: And it was a nested if, and it's so hard to debug three or four levels down because you have to, you have to always go through all of the progression and then switch. You can just read the different cases. And then usually, like a, a, a problem with switch is that you just didn't have the case involved or nothing happened and you're getting an error instead of like, you're getting some weird something else.

[00:49:26] Andrew: And then also, like one problem with switch, which is not a problem, you just have to realize is numbers. You don't ha you don't have to put the quotes around numbers that like, knows numbers. Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah.

[00:49:40] Hugo: I'll, I'll explore that. Definitely. And in switch you can do like if as

[00:49:45] Andrew: well.

[00:49:49] Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. You can still nest ifs inside of switch if you, I think if you want, because it's, it's, it's the, it's doing the same thing, but in a different syntax. Yeah. Like most of the, and then again, this is what happened to me is most of the time I found that what I really wanted to accomplish with a nested if was this different cases were happening, and so I just wanted to use switch.

[00:50:16] Andrew: So there are times when you're like, oh, I need to do a nested if, because I need to check this first, then I need to check this, then I need to check this. And, and it's a, and you get a binary tree out of it, a pretty simple one, but you still get a tree. Whereas if you're like, oh, I just need to know if it's this, this, or this, and these are like three things that are all on the same level.

[00:50:38] Andrew: I need to check the, on the first time I need to check these three things, then it's switch. That's where. . I don't know if I makes sense there between those

[00:50:45] Hugo: two. Yeah, no, I, I get that. I get that. Like, because one thing I don't like about Google Sheets is that you, there's no like else, if you know what I mean.

[00:50:58] Hugo: Like, it's, it's really hard to read. So I have a quick question for you. Do you format your formulas or do you keep them all minimized

[00:51:09] Andrew: format formulas? What do you mean?

[00:51:11] Hugo: Like, um, like for, like, you know, when, when you code, you have like, each line have a different like, oh, app bracket here. Repeat that. You

[00:51:20] Andrew: mean an app script?

[00:51:22] Hugo: No, no, no. An app script in the read like formulas. Because let's say you do a nested, if, um, you have the, you. Like you, you can do it the same way as you. You would code, you know, one, like if, and then you have like the condition, then you would have like the true, and then you have have the false, and then you can like, kind of like, um, kind of staircase

[00:51:44] Andrew: it in a way.

[00:51:45] Andrew: Oh, like syntax? Like add, add a new line, you mean?

[00:51:49] Hugo: Yeah. Do you do that? I've never added a new line. So you have like the, you, you're, you're a bit like me, you're a bit of a, like a how, how, what is the name again? You're, um, you, you like to torture true yourself because when you try to read it after, you're just like, it's all what I call like, like minimize, like you're bit like CSS or Java screen when you minimize the whole thing.

[00:52:09] Hugo: Mm-hmm. , it's just like in one line and everything is so hard to read. ,

[00:52:14] Andrew: it's always hard to read. Yeah. A hundred percent of the time, it's hard to read. . ,

[00:52:21] Hugo: yes. Hate, I hate it for that. Hate it for that. Cause it's is much easier to code because in formula you cannot do like tabs and all of these things. It's, it's just ugly.

[00:52:30] Hugo: Um, yeah. So, yeah.

[00:52:31] Andrew: Hate it. I mean, I, I, I think the, uh, I think Google Sheets has a, a feature that I don't use a lot, but some people use, which is named Ranges

[00:52:45] Andrew: name.

[00:52:49] Hugo: How do you, how do you call it again? You said name, name, name

[00:52:53] Andrew: ranges. Yeah. Named Ranges Makes Formula writing way easier, uh, quote unquote. It makes it easier because you then don't have the problem of writing out the, the range of, of different ifs or anything. But I, I don't use it nearly enough. Uh, some people absolutely love named ranges.

[00:53:16] Andrew: it makes it much faster to type, but it adds a, a layer of abstraction that doesn't jive with whatever I'm doing at the moment.

[00:53:27] Hugo: That's cool. I'm doing at the same time. I didn't know that you could name ranges. Yeah. But at the same time as you said, like you have to make sure to name them well, like you have to have a good name

[00:53:38] Andrew: convention

[00:53:40] Andrew: Right. If you name, if you, if you name sheet Sheet one A one to B one, if you name it a one, like you're Screwed, like . Oh. Um, and that, that might be one of the reasons why I don't use it a lot is cuz I just don't wanna have to figure out a name for something or it's one of the, it's also one of those, uh, things that I just do naturally is I, I know that it's gonna turn a color, so if I type the correct sheet name and range, I know if I got it right, right away.

[00:54:17] Andrew: Um, but named Ranges, man. Some people love 'em and, and they're very useful. They're extremely useful. Um, what is it? Could the, the answer could, could be yours or someone else's, but what's your favorite sheet?

[00:54:37] Andrew: Hmm. Does, it does, it doesn't have to be someone else's. It doesn't have to be. necessarily. It could be your own, you, you have a fa it seems like you have a favorite sheet. Your weekly schedule you have from five years .

[00:54:51] Hugo: Yeah. That's, that's funny because I don't really use spreadsheets from, from any, anyone else apart from those I've created.

[00:54:57] Hugo: Um, like the one I use almost on a daily basis is my financial sheet, my shield. I use it literally every other day. Uh, because I, let's say like for example, this morning I had a, a Twilio transaction, so I just added it into it, and then that's it. Tomorrow morning, if I have no transactions or if I have no expenses or income, like I'm not gonna add it.

[00:55:19] Hugo: But tomorrow, if I have like an, an income from a client, then I'll add it into it because that helps me to keep track of my finances. So at the end of the year, which is again, it's another, something else that I, I've managed to do. Uh, this year it was January 3rd, I had planned the whole afternoon to do my finances for.

[00:55:38] Hugo: The end of the year, my end of the year report to send my accounted, literally three hours later I was done. I was like, huh, that's it. ,

[00:55:46] Andrew: three, three hours. It took you? Yeah. I mean, I

[00:55:49] Hugo: was like, Uh, did I forget any transactions? No. Basically the last, the last, like the, the three hours were just to add the transactions I knew were recurring that I didn't take care of, for example, like a V P S, um, for hosting, like.

[00:56:05] Hugo: I just, I, I know at the end of the year, it's just gonna be easier to export other transactions and add it in, in the block of like, transaction, just, just faster instead of doing it every month. But there's other transactions that are more like, um, punctual, not like always that recurring. So it's just ev literally, like ev at least every week I review my finances and I know like where I am.

[00:56:28] Hugo: So I know, like for example, last month, this month, um, month to date this year, I know like how much I've earned, how much profit I've, I've like profit, like I've, I've really made based on the, the expenses. So that, that guides me into like knowing where I am in my, in my business and why I am in, in a way in my life.

[00:56:47] Hugo: Because if you work for, as an entrepreneur and you don't really have employees, well that helps you to know like how much can you spend on like other things than you know, your business.

[00:56:58] Andrew: Yeah, that's really helpful. I mean, you say you only spent three hours on it, but it sounds like you also spent. 30 seconds to 45 seconds every single day for 364 days out of the year.

[00:57:12] Andrew: Um, correct. That adds up.

[00:57:14] Hugo: Correct. But at the same time, as an entrepreneur, you wanna know your numbers. And literally in, in one of the business that I'm partner in, uh, LinkedIn and marketing agency, um, like we had a prospect that he was interested into working with us mm-hmm. , but then he talked to his, like content and he was like, no, I won't be able to work like with you.

[00:57:36] Hugo: Um, I'll only be able to start working in like in April. Mm-hmm. , in my mind, there's like almost a red flag. If you're an entrepreneur, you shouldn't know your numbers, you shouldn't know where you're at. You shouldn't rely on your accountants to know like what decision can you make?

[00:57:50] Andrew: Yeah. That's, that's important to know where you are at, where you are and where you're going.

[00:57:56] Andrew: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:57:57] Hugo: Exactly. That's why like, I'd rather like, that's why that 30 seconds or like two minutes a day, For me, it's, it's a must as an entrepreneur. And then I, at the end of the year, I end up saving lots of time. So for me it's a win-win.

[00:58:12] Andrew: But it sounds like you also kept the, um, as an analogy, you kept the, the ship straight, like doing, being diligent about it every day, having that path.

[00:58:26] Andrew: Right. That 32nd to 45 second path of, I have paid for this, here it goes, I got paid for this. Here it goes. And that place to put it right in here. Just that action alone. Yes. Okay. You can do it over the course of 10 to 12 hours in one day, do that, but then the other 364 days of the year, you're like, how much am I spending?

[00:58:47] Andrew: How much is coming in? Is that rhythm going appropriately? Do I need to be spending less? Do I need to be spending more? Um, because oh, I, I see this trend of downward, you know, angle. Or do I see this upward and I can spend more because I'm gonna be unhappy in about one or two months because there's too much work.

[00:59:08] Andrew: Do I have to hire someone to help on these or do I have to move some time allotted? Okay. I get paid. Uh, do you get paid upfront for some agency work? Yeah. Yeah. So like, okay, I need to keep that in mind over the next six to eight weeks, I'm gonna be busy on this big deal that just happened. Um, putting that into your accounting.

[00:59:34] Andrew: Just helps keep on that track, right?

[00:59:38] Hugo: Yeah, exactly. And the worst thing that you don't want to happen to you is like your accountant at the end of the year telling you, oh, by the way, you ha you have to pay like $6,000 to the government for your taxes, um, because you forgot to put that money that you receive, you know?

[00:59:57] Hugo: Yeah. From, from transactions in, into a bank account. I, I was literally showing my, my partner, um, how I take care of my finances. I literally have a bank account for how do I, I like how much I will, I need to save for the I r s, how much I need to save for the taxes, how much is for my saving, how much is for money that I have, I know is needs to be allocated at some point during the, during the year to someone like pay content, like all of that money is in different bank accounts.

[01:00:26] Hugo: Different like saving instead of doing that too.

[01:00:28] Andrew: That's funny. I lit, I, I literally just opened other accounts. Yeah. To do that, to uh, save for this. I have one where I'm saving for a specific thing, uh, and I'm like, oh, am I adding to it? I have investments, so like my bank account, whenever I look at it, I, I get very depressed cuz I'm like, man, this is not really moving.

[01:00:46] Andrew: Like, I'm not really coming out ahead, but then like underneath it, or a bunch of other accounts that are like slowly growing as well. Like, I'm like, oh, okay, I'm fine.

[01:00:57] Hugo: Yeah. That, that's what, that's what matters. And in a way, you seeing that you don't have much in your bank account might put pressure, might not, not much, like more, as much as, as you would like.

[01:01:09] Hugo: Even though you, you save that money, that just put more pressure in, into you of like, oh, you have to keep going. Because if you would, like, let's say you will have like, I don't know, a million in your bank account, you'd be like, ah, like maybe I can chill a little bit. But then, then at the same time, because it's people

[01:01:25] Andrew: always.

[01:01:26] Andrew: If you have a million, you want 10 million. If you have 10 million, you want a hundred million. Like I think the goalposts always move. I, if you have 10,000, you want 12,000. Like I, I think that's

[01:01:37] Hugo: very true. But at the same time, there's a lot of people that they. Like what, what happens often is people like that have a lot of money or earns a lot of money at some time.

[01:01:49] Hugo: If they're not, you know, disciplined about, like, about their wealth or about their, their, their mind, their finances, what they, what would happen is like, they would like work hard for like six months or hard for three months and they would have have a lot of money and then they would start to chill and then they would be like, oh shit, my, my bank account is getting low.

[01:02:08] Hugo: I have to continue to work. I have to start again to work instead of like having a consent flow of, of work. Um, so the, it, you know, the, it depends what is your relationship with money, I guess. Yeah. But yes, very true.

[01:02:21] Andrew: I wanna, I wanna ask you one final question about your relationship with spreadsheets. Um, what is it?

[01:02:28] Andrew: If you, if you see spreadsheets, cuz I think you're like me, you see a lot of other people's spreadsheets where sort of in groups where people will share whatever their, their product that they're selling, which is a spreadsheet, or they'll share a sheet or you'll see a sheet. Or people, people know you sell shields, so they'll send you sheets.

[01:02:46] Andrew: I don't know if you get that too. I get that a lot of people just will send, I get a lot of Miss Excel videos sent to me. I get a lot of, uh, trick video, Google Sheet trick or Excel trick videos sent to me. Um, but what is it about a sheet? If you see something in the wild, like if somebody sends some to, sends it to you, what sparks your interest?

[01:03:06] Andrew: What, what do you see in a sheet that you're like, Ooh, is it a design designed interestingly? Is it, um, some new function you didn't think of? What, what is it that sparks your interest in a sheet? Really good

[01:03:22] Hugo: question. I think it's a combination of different things for sure. The aesthetic is interesting to see.

[01:03:26] Hugo: Oh, how did they, how did they do it? That's what's one part. Um, ghetto part is, um, I wouldn't call it like automation, but like how they cross match data or how they mm-hmm. , um, um, display the data in a way. For example, I remember that was, uh, I forgot the name of the person, but he had that like spreadsheet, M one spreadsheet, something like that.

[01:03:51] Hugo: Um, uh, and it was about, you know, tracking, um, stocks and, you know, all of that. And I thought I was interesting cause I, I like you could see like the kinda have a history, uh, history of, of. all of the investments and like ups and downs, and I thought it was really interesting and that there, I realized that there was some app script in the, in the, in the backend, a bit of like, oh, how did they do it?

[01:04:19] Hugo: So I like to kind of look at how people do things and try to understand how I, like, how I could, you know, improve my, my own sheets, uh, that way. But yeah, I think it's, it's really like, it's not, it would, it would not be formulas per se. It would be more like how the, how the sheet function together and when it's like, when it's really, really well, um, in a way coded either, like, either through app scripts or through formulas.

[01:04:48] Hugo: I find it really impressive because you can do a lot of things in, in spreadsheets. Um, but yeah, I, I think that's, that's, that's the, that's the main. But I, so it

[01:05:00] Andrew: sounds like you, you are interested when, when you don't, it sounds like what you're saying is you're interested when you don't know how it's done immediately.

[01:05:09] Andrew: Like a, like a magic trick. Like, Ooh, how did they do that? Wait, what? Wait, there's no, you click in a, some cell change and you're like, oh, what's the formula here? Oh, there's no formula. Wait, how do they do that?

[01:05:22] Hugo: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think that that's, that's really like, you summarized it really well because the aesthetic is like, usually it's very rarely that fancy, but like the, that kind of part of the magic trick is, is really the, the one thing I'm like, oh, I wanna know how to do that as well.

[01:05:38] Andrew: That's, that's funny. I, I do like a well-designed sheet that is a design that I never would've come up with myself knowing that it, it's not a trick that it's, the trick is just to do it, like have the creative vision to change the look and feel of a sheet in a way that doesn't. Rip away the spreadsheet feeling so much as like, cuz sometimes you can make a spreadsheet look like not a spreadsheet, and then it sort of doesn't act like a spreadsheet either.

[01:06:09] Andrew: But when somebody can create something in a spreadsheet that feels like you're in a spreadsheet, but you're in a really well done spreadsheet and you just know it took a lot of time, like, oh, they got the rose correct, they got the width correct. They got the cu the colors not straight up one or the other.

[01:06:25] Andrew: It's like they picked out this particular font. Ah, when it's, when it's hard labor work in a sheet. I go crazy. I'm like, this is great. And then I , I do like the worst thing possible. I'm like, I, I immediately go, how can I use this? Okay, now I see the path, I see this. Now how can I. Oh,

[01:06:46] Hugo: it's amazing. Feel free to send me some of them because mm-hmm.

[01:06:49] Hugo: it's true that, that, that it's can be really impressive of how, how people do things. Um, that, that reminds me a lot of, uh, when I was, when I used to play video game more like hardcore and like a while back, like maybe like 15 years ago, something like that. Um, and people at the time, it was possible to create like an Xbox Live on the first, first Xbox and Xbox Live in some games you could have, like, you have like the clan features and you could create an emblem, like Halo, I think.

[01:07:24] Hugo: Yeah, like Halo three or even a Rainbow Rainbows, extreme black Arrow. They, they, you could create like an emblem, like a logo. Mm-hmm. Um, but you had, you were limited to specific shapes and like forms.

[01:07:35] Andrew: Wow. You had to do the work of create from this set of shapes. You had to put together this thing. Yeah,

[01:07:42] Hugo: that was so impressive.

[01:07:43] Hugo: Some people were making like logos and was like, whoa, that's amazing. Like, so much hard work. You're like, how do they do it? For example, like the shape of an eye or like this thing, and it is just a mixture of like, you know, triangle, rectangle and circles and you know, like vaults and just like these basic shapes.

[01:08:02] Hugo: And you see like how all of that is like patterned together and you're just like, whoa. That's impressive. Yeah. That's kinda how I feel about spreadsheets and, and like, in terms of designs. Like it's, it's really great to see like how people came up with, you know, such amazing aesthetic with like such a basic, you know, interface.

[01:08:20] Andrew: Yeah. And, and they did it. And it, it ends up being so simple. But then, yeah, I talk to someone and they're like, oh yeah, this took me, you know, a week and a half of like getting everything correct. Getting, I mean, I like, I love it when somebody posts, I, I see these posts all the time on like Twitter, where it's like a very stark white.

[01:08:39] Andrew: Spreadsheet, but like, they'll use consols, um, I don't know how to pronounce cons, consol, consols, uh, font. And they'll make it look very white and stark. And it's, it's the same spreadsheet we all use, but it just looks so pretty inside this like, oh, they just formatted, like instead of just having the headers and then data, they like made it, uh, up and down headers on the side.

[01:09:05] Andrew: When somebody does that, it's great. I have a, a sheet, i, I feature in better sheets, um, that, uh, the guy who runs Agans, who runs a seed table, he made this fantastic, uh, spreadsheet, well designed spreadsheet during covid about like with community stuff. And he just took, instead of having these like bold headers, he took the headers on the side.

[01:09:26] Andrew: Ah, I just love it. I'm like, okay, this is really like a designer has been like, come in and brought. 20 years of design experience into this spreadsheet. I love it. Like, yeah, you cannot re I can, I can physically replicate it, but I can't replicate the like, uh, in inner, inner being of that. It's great.

[01:09:50] Hugo: Right.

[01:09:51] Hugo: No, totally, totally. I, I, I know what he means. Same thing as like, um, this is like a kind of. A joke about, you know, when like the, like the, the plumber, whatever guy, like the construction guy, uh, come to fix to your house. Like the, like one nail just just hit the nail at the one place and then fix like, and then it's like 900, $900 and person, like, what?

[01:10:14] Hugo: You just spent like one second and you hit the nail at the right, you hit the nail, you just hit a nail. No, it's just like you ha you had to know where to hit the nail at the right place for it to work. And that's, that's, you know what, what it costs.

[01:10:28] Andrew: Yeah. The, the bill comes due and it's like, time, what, at $60 an hour?

[01:10:33] Andrew: It's, it's $1 for one minute at $60 an hour, and then $989 for knowing where to hit the nail. .

[01:10:41] Hugo: Yeah, pretty much love it. So yeah, it's kinda how I feel about, you know, design, um, and, and experience. Like you have to, to know like how you, you have to, to have the, the, the designer essence and, you know, the creative soul to, to do that.

[01:10:57] Andrew: Yeah. Thanks so much, Hugo, for chatting or talking about spreadsheets with me, quite a long time. I feel like

[01:11:06] Hugo: we went on

[01:11:07] Andrew: all directions. Yeah, this has been great. I, oh, I hope people enjoy it. Um, is there any last parting words before we go? I mean, we wanna, I'll, I'll have links to shield, I'll have links to what you, you've produced, what you sell, what you work on, um, in the description below for anyone watching this photo.

[01:11:31] Andrew: Comment below. Yeah, comment if, which, which tangent you liked, in which way you liked. Hugo, I'll be checking this out too. Thanks so much, Hugo.

[01:11:41] Hugo: My pleasure. We we can do that at any time. .

[01:11:45] Andrew: Yeah. I feel like I can talk about spreadsheets all day, every day.

[01:11:50] Hugo: Yeah. Same. Same. Awesome. Thanks for, uh, thanks for having me.

[01:11:53] Hugo: That was great.

[01:11:54] Andrew: Hey, thanks for watching that video. Watch here for all the episodes of sheet talking here on YouTube. And over here, watch the latest video from better sheets. Enjoy. Thanks for watching.

Watch the whole Sheet Talking episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTToU-zGnZU