Did you know that MS Excel has a hidden, life altering Easter egg? This is a story of how I found it and discovered joy. Read on.
Almost an year ago, I have quit my job with one of the leading IT companies in the world, to embark on an uncertain but very exciting journey. I have started my own business around MS Excel – creating & selling awesome Excel products & training programs [visit our online store].
This is a continuation of the Chandoo.org Start-up Story posted around the same time last year. Grab a cup of coffee and read it in leisure. Do not expect any Excel tips. 🙂
[PS: if you are new to Chandoo.org, Read this and this before reading this post.]
What is it like to run a small business
When I wanted to leave a stable & well-paying job & start a business several things bothered me. What if my business never picks up? What if I do not generate enough money to sustain my family? What if I grow complacent & make mistakes? What if I get bored or lonely or get demotivated? What if I cannot handle the thousand little things that go in to running a business?
They say, leap and a net will appear. And leap I did. And just as if a switch is turned on, I found answers to all my doubts one by one. I discovered the joy in running a small business around my passion. I made mistakes, but I kept learning. I found help from friends. I made new friendships. I learned how to reduce, automate, outsource areas of work that are not critical. I hired people to help me with customer service & emails. And not one moment, I felt tired, bored or demotivated. In fact, I feel excited every single day about what I am doing.
How is my business doing?
Here is a quick summary of the business:
(April 2010 to March 2011)
- Total paying customers: 2,175 (Repeat customers: 175)
- Revenues: ~$200,000
- Top products – Excel School (743), PM Templates (1148), Dashboard Training (199)
- Consulting clients – Microsoft, Wao Marketing, eNor and more.
- Speaking & Training – Office 2010 Launch Event, International Excel Workshop @ Maldives
- Total Visitors to Chandoo.org – 2.5 Mn
- Visitors who spent more than 15 minutes on site – 787,000
- Number of comments received – 7,790
- Number of articles written – 217
- Press Coverage – MSN, Economic Times etc.
What did I learn in one year of doing this?
Many things. Hardly a week goes by without picking up some new skill or idea. But the most important things have to be,
It is not risky: I had this notion of taking huge risk by leaving a plush job. But then, the risk magically disappeared on day 2. Instead, I see immense opportunity for fun, knowledge, satisfaction and profit. All of which were not possible with my day job beyond certain extent. [Related: Is it scary to start?]
It does not take 80 hours per week: During the first 6 months, I used to work a lot. Most of the time I was inefficient. Then, I analyzed my time (in Excel, what else) and found that I could reduce the number of hours spent on e-mail and other activities to focus on what I love most – Excel, interacting with people and sharing new ideas. Now, I am spending <6 hours per day and I am happy with the results.
You need a supportive family: At least once a day, my son or daughter would walk up to my office-cum-guest-bedroom and knock on the doors, often violently, and scream – “daddy, da.” (meaning, Come out Daddy). Although, my heart would race to go out and hug them, I would say no and continue working.
There were days, when Jo (my wife) would feel lonely as I was locked inside the office room for a product launch or marathon recording session or crafting a dashboard etc.
But, thankfully, I have an understanding wife. So, they would be all smiles when I walk out. Also, I have learned to structure my working hours around my kids sleeping hours. For eg. I would get up at 4AM to do recording.
Saying NO is 100 times tougher than saying YES: While I feel immensely thankful for the growth in my business, it has also bought in a new challenge. There were too many opportunities. So many more than I can handle. I get requests for consulting, training, product development, testing, collaboration and more. Initially I used to say YES to everyone. Soon, I had a pipeline of things to do, with no clear plan on when I will finish everything. Then, I started being picky. I started accepting consulting work for projects which are challenging. I started collaborating with one company at a time. This reduced the workload. But the challenge of saying NO is so much more than YES.
Taking it easy is not so easy: When this blog was my side-business, I used to take it very easily. But during the initial months of making the switch, it was hard for me to take this easily. I would freak-out when my site went down, when a customer dis-liked my product or when I get an email with “Urgent” in the subject.
I learned to slow down things. For eg. I reduced the number of posts per week from 5 to 3. I also roped in more people. Hui, Paramdeep & a few guest authors to write on this blog. Ravindra to help me with emails & customer service. Naturally, this restored my sense of humor and ability to learn new things.
Ask and you shall receive: This is the most important lesson. I used to worry whether anyone would purchase my training or products. But then I realized that by just asking you to purchase, you would consider it. This is how I was able to generate revenues from Excel School, PM Templates and other products.
What next?
I am excited about the way my business has turned out. While I generally avoid from making long-term plans, here are a bunch of things I would continue to do,
- I would like to grow this business slowly and learn new things all along.
- I will continue to share my knowledge, mistakes and ideas with you.
- I will spend a great deal of time with Jo and kids. I love taking long walks with Jo, playing with kids.
- I like connecting with people all around the world and will continue to do so.
- I will continue making awesome products, training programs.
- We (our family) will continue to spend less, live meaningfully and give back a portion of what we make to society.
- I will continue to treat you, my dear reader, as my top-most priority.
Wishing you a happy Easter
I found an Easter egg in Excel. Instead of finding it on Easter day, I find it everyday. And I feel excited, fulfilled, grateful & honored.
I wish you will find your Easter egg. It might be in your profession, hobby, religion or community. I wish you will discover the same joy as I did and continue to spread it.
And if you have already found it, then I feel very happy for you.
Thank you.
Easter Egg photo from tillwe.
15 Responses to “Compare 2 Lists Visually and Highlight Matches”
Hi,
I solved this in a little different way.
We have 2 lists, one starts at A1 and other at B1, both are vertical arrays.
First thing is define 2 named ranges, list1 and list2:
list1 refers to "=OFFSET(Sheet1!$A$1;0;0;SUMPRODUCT(--(Sheet1!$A$1:$A$1000""));1)"
list2 refers to "=OFFSET(Sheet1!$A$1;0;0;SUMPRODUCT(--(Sheet1!$B$1:$B$1000""));1)"
this way lists will be dynamically sized when you had or remove elements (you can't have blanks and you can't have more than 1000 elements).
Then I use conditional formatting in column A when this formula is true:
"=NOT(ISERROR(MATCH(A1;list2;0)))"
and "=NOT(ISERROR(MATCH(B1;list1;0)))" to list2.
This way we eliminate the need for auxiliary columns or lists.
Hope you like my way! 😀
Nunes
Simple conditional formatting formula.
Assuming lists vertical lists starting in A1 & B1
To highlight just one column (assume B for example)
Conditional formatting>New Rule>by formula
=MATCH(B1,$A$1:$A$99,0)
Set the cell fill to what ever color you prefer & press OK
To highlight both columns repeat with this formula for cell in column A
=MATCH(A1,$B$1:$B$99,0)
This approach doesn't require named fields or addtl columns
glw
Say I had 1 list in A2:A20 and another in B2:B20.
To format all the items in column A that are repeated in column B I would use the following Conditional Formatting rule.
=IF(ISNA(VLOOKUP(A2,$B$2:$B$20,1,false)),true,false)
All the duplicates are highlighted. It us a very simple example of comparison.
I may be missing something here, but I usually highlight both my lists by holding ctrl eg A1:A20 E10:E40 then choose conditional formatting from the ribbon and then highlight duplicates, and this does it?
Lee, I was perplexed as well. I do the same thing you do with the conditional formating. A drag and click to highlight range and choose highlight duplicates does the trick for me.
I believe these methods are to check if an item from one list also appears in the other list. So if an item mentioned many times in one list if also mentioned in the other list or not.
The Conditional Formatting highlight duplicates feature will do this, but it will also highlight an item if it appears multiple times in the one column or list.
Hi, I would just like to know (if you are willing to share) which image editing program you use to make your image like above, like they are torn apart from bottom? I've been looking for long.
@i48998
Chandoo is on Holidays, but Chandoo uses Paint.Net
Paint.net is a free download available at http://www.paint.net/
.
I use CorelDraw/PhotoPaint
.
We both use the Snipping Tool (a freebe with Win Vista/10)
.
We both use Camtasia for doing screen captures to make animated GIFs where you see animation.
Here is how I would accomplish
(1) Define Names: List_1, List_2
(2) =ISNA(MATCH(D4,List_2,0))-1 (Conditional Format formula List_1)
(3) =ISNA(MATCH(D4,List_1,0))-1 (Conditional Format formula List_2)
ISNA will return 1 if NO Match and O if Match by adding a -1 will make: NO Match 0 and Match a -1 which is True
Hi all
this my first Post here
i think we can take Unique List for tow list to know what is not Duplicate By this Array formula
=IFERROR(INDEX($D$6:$D$33,SMALL(IF(ISERROR(MATCH($D$6:$D$33,$B$6:$B$33,0)),ROW($D$6:$D$33)-ROW($D$6)+1),ROWS($J$5:J5))),"")
and this one for Duplicate Value
=IFERROR(INDEX($D$6:$D$33,SMALL(IF(ISNUMBER(MATCH($D$6:$D$33,$B$6:$B$33,0)),ROW($D$6:$D$33)-ROW($D$6)+1),ROWS($J$5:J5))),"")
Don't forget to Enter This Formula by Pressing Ctrl+Shift+Enter
without wanting to ruthlessly self promote here, I do have an addin that does neatly compare two ranges, not just in columns, so you might want to check that out.
Having said that this is a pretty neat solution if you dont want to be going down the VBA or purchase route. I like it
however, could you not do something with the remove duplicates feature in Excel 2010 and then compare the resulting data set?
Hi, Chandoo! I've found yesterday your Excel website... What can I say? It's just awesome, Excellent. Being a developer for 30 years, more than 15 with Office products, and wow!, how many things I discovered in a couple of hours, and what pretty resolved.
I decided to take the long path of the newbies and read all your examples and write down by myself all of them, and when I arrived to this (the comparison of two lists) I think I've found a problem:
a) in "Step 4: Apply conditional formatting to Second List - Use the same logic, but this time the rule becomes =COUNTIF(count1s,$H6)" it should say "Step 4: Apply conditional formatting to Second List - Use the same logic, but this time the rule becomes =COUNTIF(count1s,$H6)>0", but this is a typing error that I believe all of us here might have discovered and corrected
b) the very problem: I wrote down two different lists, in different ranges, and with different number of elements, I specified the equivalent conditional formats, et non voilá!, I didn't get what expected. So I downloaded your example book, I checked range names, formulaes, conditional formats and all OK. So I copied -just values- from my book to yours, and I still couldn't achieve the goal.
I'm using Excel 2010 in spanish, I'm from Buenos Aires (Argentina), and my book is at your disposition whenever you considerate it appropiate.
Thanks in advance for your time, and again my congratulations for your work here.
Best regards.
SirJB7
Comparison of 2 lists visually with highlights
Author: SirJB7 / Date: 11-Dic-2011
Pros: no duplicated tables, no matrix formulaes, no named ranges, no VBA code, just conditional formatting
Cons: not found yet, comments and observations welcome
Features:
a) standard problem: highlights in orange/yellow elements existing in the other list
b) optimized problem: idem a) plus highlights in red/violet first occurrence of elements existing in the other list
Sheet contents:
a) conditional format, 1 rule per list (2 methods used)
A1:A20, first list
B1:B20, second list
a1) range A1:A20, condition =NO(ESERROR(BUSCARV(A1;B$1:B$20;1;FALSO))), format Orange ---> in english: =NOT(ISERROR(VLOOKUP(A1,B$1:B$20,1,FALSE)))
a2) range B1:B20, condition =CONTAR.SI(A$1:A$20;B1)>0, format Yellow ---> in english: =COUNTIF(A$1:A$20,B1)>0
b) conditional format, 2 rules per list (2 methods used)
D1:D20, first list
E1:E20, second list
b1) range E1:E20, condition 1 =Y(NO(ESERROR(BUSCARV(D1;E$1:E$20;1;FALSO)));COINCIDIR(D1;D$1:D$20;0)=FILA(D1)), format Red ---> in english: =AND(NOT(ISERROR(VLOOKUP(D1,E$1:E$20,1,FALSE))),MATCH(D1,D$1:D$20,0)=ROW(D1))
same range, condition 2 and format 2, same as a1)
b2) range E1:E20, condition =Y(CONTAR.SI(D$1:D$20;E1)>0;COINCIDIR(E1;E$1:E$20;0)=FILA(E1)), format Violet ---> in english: =AND(COUNTIF(D$1:D$20,E1)>0,MATCH(E1,E$1:E$20,0)=ROW(E1))
same range, condition 2 and format 2, same as a2)
Personally I like the a2) and b2) solutions, I think the formulaes are prettier.
I still don't know the rules of this website and forum, but it any precept is infringed I'm willing to share the workbook with the solution. If it breaks a rule, I apologize and promise that won't happen again.
Best regards for all!
Dear All i have a complicated situation...
1. I have two sheets of data Sheet1 and Sheet2 (from various sources) - Both of these contain data matching and Not matching as well..
2. Now for me i need to build an excel where in i need to get sheet 3 with values that are present in a column of Sheet 1.
What ever Sheet 1 doesn't have i dont want those rows from sheet 2 to be populated into Sheet3.
Can any one help me out.
Hi Team
The above example is to compare partial name from 2 different columns.
If I want to cross check it in a single column. I have both correct and partial correct/match entries in a column. Is there any way I can find both the entries in the column.
Regards