Some other users are able to see their workspace but when they open a spreadsheet, the spreadsheet will not load and returns a white blank page.

The problem is with accessing the content delivery network, CDN. If you are experiencing the problem, we have a tweak that will rectify the problem. We suggest you do the following:

1. Go to http://www.editgrid.com/tweak
2. Click on Disable CDN for your browser link (see figure below)
3. Reload your workspace or spreadsheet

This usually does the trick. In some cases, users may be required to clear their cache before seeing their workspace and spreadsheets.

If you are doing a startup, perhaps the following Q&As may be interesting to you.

1. Background on your business (nature of what you do).

We make online spreadsheet: EditGrid. It runs on a “Software as a Service (SaaS)” business model.

2. Can you take us back to the beginning of your business: How did you start? What was the first thing you had to do? Where did you get funding?

We started the company before we graduate from HKU. We graduated in 2004, one year after the disease SARS hit Hong Kong badly. The opportunity cost of doing a startup cannot be lower.

The first thing we did was to build a team by pooling all the best people I can find at that time. We had some ideas to start with, but honestly it tends to change a lot down the road when we have more knowledge to generate better vision of the world. We always put the team first, thus our company name: Team and Concepts - team is before and more important than concepts.

Then we needed money. Our solution was to borrow. When you do startup, you need to take the risk.

Later, we have angel investors and government funding. But they usually come in after you’ve something more solid.

3. Moving on to VC funding: at what point did you decide to seek venture capital?

The way VC really works is to have money chasing deals. VCs are in the business of funding the best investment opportunities they can find. Probably you will know you are ready when you are tracked by a few VCs who actively approach you and try to know more about you, your company and product.

To reach this point, you need to build traction. That’s buzz around your product, users using your product, customers paying your product, big name partners working with you, etc. VCs want to see where you are now more than where you will be in the future. VCs want visibility of exit. I would say a business plan and a quality team is NOT what they want the most. They want to see some solid execution that has already been done.

4. What was the process like? How do you go about doing that?

A VC approached us and looked at our company, determined we have potential but a bit early stage for them. He made lots of referral to some series A VCs. A few of them found us interesting and send a representative to visit us in our office and watch the demo. Some asked me to make a demo to all their partners in Beijing. (note: VC tends to have all partners in the company endorse a deal before they move forward). The term sheet was signed a few days after the meeting - before I left Beijing. It was fast. From that point to cash in bank took about 2 months.

We didn’t submit any business plan. The key part of the subsequent due diligence was a number calls to our clients and partners.

5. What are the pros and cons of selling stakes of your business to venture capitals or other private equity investors, for that matter?

Acceleration. Taking VC fund accelerate your success or failure. Of course, the VC will also enjoy a big part of your success at pay day.

With more money, we can hire good people and can focus to do what make sense for our business.

6. Has anything changed ever since you got investors on board?

Our series A investor is WI Harper, they are good and entrepreneur friendly. So, they largely leave us alone to take our company forward and always be available to give advice and help when we need them.

If you have chance, try to take money from reputable VCs.

7. For those with an idea to start up their own business, what’s the best route to getting funding? When does private investment come into the picture?

Take risk for your company. Focus to do one thing and one thing only. Do it better than anybody else in the world. The market and the VCs will tell you when you are ready.

JavaScript. EditGrid Macros are written in JavaScript, not in VBA. Use a modern language, instead of learning another (otherwise useless) proprietary language. Use the comfortable and familiar C++/Java syntax. Write in OOP and higher order functions.

Powerful. EditGrid Macros can create forms, which are defined using HTML (plus CSS) and manipulated using DOM. You can add everything you would add to your blog/website e.g. YouTube video and Google Maps. It is also possible use SOAP and REST to retrieve data and manipulate other data from other sites, enough for mashing up with other web services.

Asynchronous. EditGrid Macros are executed independent of the spreadsheet. It does not block other spreadsheet features like when you make a blocking function call such as VBA’s MsgBox(”text”, vbYesNo). This is essential to spreadsheets with Real-Time-Update across collaborators. By executing macros on the client side, we ensure that macros can provide the best interactions towards users, while can still access spreadsheet data and operations on our server side.

We put our money where our mouth is. Instead of writing some Hello World alike macros, which our competitor did, we decided to write something inspiring & useful.

Custom Behavior

• Create your own keyboard shortcuts
• Sift out duplications with a mouse click
• Play a game of Blackjack
• Cockroach spotting and kill stats
• Text to Columns
• Conditional Formatting

HTML Toolbox

• Format a range with table designs
• Date Range Picker
• In-Spreadsheet Form

Mash-up

• Retrieve coordinates from Google Maps (by clicking on the map)
• Map your location on Google Maps (by typing an address)
• Monitor current and historical currency exchange rates
• Encrypt the spreadsheet contents (Note: this is not for security, just for fun)

Updated backend
We have updated our spreadsheet engine. This include new features, enhancements and improvements that were not available in the earlier version.

• Array Formulas
• Named Range
• Support PDF export

Other features
In addition, we are rolling out a few more useful features:

• Cross hair mode - Go to View > Show Crosshair
  
• Vertical alignment - Go to View > Enable Vertical Alignment and it will then appear in the toolbar
  
• Duplicate Sheet
  

Workspace Enhancement
Following the heels of the last month’s release of the new workspace, we have continued to make enhancements to the workspace. There is now a easy access link to Featured Spreadsheets, Inbox and Pagination.

In addition to viewing our featured spreadsheet from our main site, you can now view and copy them from your workspace. The new Inbox view will notify you of all the latest spreadsheet that has been shared to you by your collaborators. With Pagination, your workspace is slightly more organized.

More Data Packs
We have also squeezed several data packs in this release. By utilizing the Google API, you can now get Weather and Patent data in your spreadsheet, as well as adding dictionary functionality in your spreadsheet. There are also data packs which you can use to grab real estate information from Zillow and Trulia.

We’ve got a lot of changes out this month, so be sure to check out our Change Log for a complete list and details of this month’s release.

The most notable new features in this release are:

• Macro (beta)
  We are excited to announce our very own macro. But unlike the standard macros written in VB, our macro is based on Javascript, an updated and capable programming platform compared to VB in today’s web. EditGrid Macro will allow you to insert code to customize and add features to the Grid as well as create mashups and deploy instantly to your collaborative spreadsheet without additional deployment effort. Below are some macro examples:

  - Deduplication
  - Table Formatting
  - Date Range Picker

• Named Ranges
• Array Formula
• Duplicate Sheet
• Vertical Alignment
• Book Comments

Enhancements:

• New crosshair view enable users to easily locate
• Improved copy and paste of sheet object, i.e. charts and images
• Workspace Enhancements
  - Pagination
  - Feature Spreadsheets
  - Inbox - displays the latest spreadsheets shared to you
  - Additional preferences/options
• New Data Packs for Zillow, Trulia and Google
  ZILLOW_SEARCH()
  ZILLOW_ZESTIMATE()
  ZILLOW_UPDATEDDETAILS()
  ZILLOW_CHART()
  TRULIA_GET_CITIES_IN_STATE()
  TRULIA_GET_COUNTIES_IN_STATE()
  TRULIA_GET_NEIGHBORHOODS_IN_CITY()
  TRULIA_GET_ZIPCODES_IN_STATE()
  TRULIA_CITY_STATS()
  TRULIA_COUNTY_STATS()
  TRULIA_NEIGHBORHOOD_STATS()
  TRULIA_STATE_STATS()
  TRULIA_ZIPCODE_STATS()
  GDEFINE()
  GWEATHER()
  GPATENT()
  GAREACODE()
• Remote data now allows users the option to click and expand large data sets
• Organisation admin has the ability to switch on page header

And some major bug fixes:

• Increased scrolling performance for scrolling an entire merged column (#8382)
• Fixed mouse to not capture shift+enter, shift+tab (#8132)
• Fixed checkbox so it cannot be toggled in a linked sheet (#7971)
• Fixed PageUp key function to page up one page. (#8501)
• Fixed cell to allow checkbox insertion with boolean expression (#8507)
• Fixed incorrect code snippet output for Calculator publishing widget (#8600)

They are highly popular. At peak hours, the spreadsheets see thousands of concurrent users. In a few days, they have been visited more than 1 million times. Finally we have a spreadsheet that can challenge the popularity of the adr spreadsheet regularly visited by thousands of people every day.

It also seems to us that these popular spreadsheets were moved to EditGrid from another service.

Well, competition and choice are always a good thing for end users.

The newly available calls are:

1. auth.createSessionKey()
   An alternative way to authenticate an API session. Use this API if you feel it safe to send usernames and passwords from your app.
2. cell.setStyle(), cell.setSize()
   Allow changing the color of cells and row column heights.
3. cell.setInput()
   An easier way to update a range of cells to the same input value. This method does not require you to pass the values in the request body as in cell.set().
4. worksheet.updateLinked()
   Updates (freshen) a linked sheet from API. Note that you’re still bounded by the same 15 seconds minimal interval between two consecutive updates.
5. workbook.clone()
   Clone an existing workbook to create a new one, copying all its content.
6. revision.create(), revision.get(), revision.mark(), revision.query(), revision.rollback(), revision.unmark()
   A full set of APIs for you to manage the old revisions of a workbook.
7. user.list(), user.query()
   For organisation admin to get a list of all users in your organisation.
8. workbook.delete(), workbook.restore(), workbook.purge()
   You can now delete (and undelete) your workbooks from API.

See the REST API reference for a complete documentation of all the functions.

However, we have deferred the following functions due to technical reason:

• make available last modification info on cell
• export individual sheets

We will make then available as soon as the difficulties were solved.

If you have any problem, feel free to post them in our forum.

Besides the actual competition, everyone is always interested to know if their countrymen and women are bringing home any hardware. The Beijing Olympics is something special and the medals being awarded includes both the spirit of the Olympics and traditional Chinese culture and by far the best design in the recent Olympics.

It’s too bad our team can’t be on the podium collecting those awesome medals in person. Actually, that’s not true, we are collecting Olympic medals, medal counts in a spreadsheet, that is.

The Olympic medal standings spreadsheet uses the web_table() function to extract data from the results page of the official Beijing 2008 Olympics website.

As part of the customer support team, I want to briefly share what goes on here at EditGrid. Online support has been very important to us and it’s been working well. Phone support on the other hand, would not work as well, considering our geographic location and our users and being a startup, there’s no need to outsource to some call center in India. I wouldn’t consider putting our users and customers through that even if that was an option.

We offer several channels to help our customers, our support forum, help center and email, with our help center being a one-way street. We also monitor Twitter and trying out Get Satisfaction, so your voices won’t go unanswered.

All these channels may sound like a handful, and it is, but they’re absolutely manageable and extremely efficient. We have had positive feedback from our users and are able to meet our commitment, answering all requests in a timely fashion, meaning within one business day.

Admittedly, there are times where we missed a request or two or take a little longer to reply. If that’s you, kindly remind us, but we’d understand if you want to give us an ear full instead (we just ask that you keep it clean). We’ll continue to look for ways to improve so it won’t happen again.

Since the very first Featured Spreadsheet came out, we’ve visited more than 1000 pieces of nicely made spreadsheets now. Looking through these various spreadsheets is a fruitful and engaging experience. We understand more of your EditGrid usages on areas like finance, and SMEs. Our team’s got thrilled by these skills and designs. We trully enjoy it!

We hope to highlight everyone the most exciting, and popular EditGrid spreadsheets. A piece of new featured spreadsheet gets published every two or three days. In general, these spreadsheets gain a visitor boost of at least 200 per day while it is exhibited at the upper left corner of the EditGrid webpage. All published featured spreadsheets will be stored at the Featured Spreadsheet page and get displayed later on at the upper left exhibit section.

Look forward to the birth of the next 100 Featured Spreadsheets. Submit us your spreadsheets and let’s speed this process up together!

Redesigned Workspace

You’ve probably noticed your EditGrid workspace looks different today. The revamped workspace offers three improvements, the use of AJAX, a left sidebar and a filter function. Our goal is to offer a workspace where users can get what they need effortlessly and efficiently.

• AJAX dialog windows
  By using AJAX in our workspace, we have introduced a faster and smoother interface to our workspace. Instead of loading new pages for each action, i.e. edit tag, edit note, upload, sharing, etc., like the previous workspace, all these actions are now done on the fly and changes will be reflected immediately in the book list.
• Left sidebar
  The addition of the left sidebar improves file browsing capabilities. In addition to the standard All/Active/Archived spreadsheet views, a tag-list and owner-list view (sorted alphabetically) can also be found. If you have tagged a keyword with your spreadsheets, you can locate it quickly by clicking on the tag. Likewise, if you are working with your collaborators, you can access the those spreadsheets by clicking on the owner in the owner-list.
• Filter function
  The filter function is perfect for locating any spreadsheet in your workspace. If you know the name of the spreadsheet or partial name of the spreadsheet you need access to, type it in the filter box and will display matching results in the books list.

Optimized Grid

In the past, we have gotten feedback from our users telling us the performance of EditGrid is on the slow side. In this release, we have made performance improvements to the grid and you’ll experience a faster response time when performing the following actions:

• Opening smaller sized sheets
• Resizing columns/rows of any size
• Navigating between sheets
• Resizing browser window
• Scrolling (most significant in IE6 and noticeable in FF2, IE7)
• Cursor movements

New Remote Data Packs

We have added two new remote data packs, Amazon and eBay. Now you have access to ecommerce data to further enhance your EditGrid spreadsheets. Both Amazon and eBay data packs will allow you to search for products by keywords and gather detail product information you are looking for, all within your spreadsheet.