People & Websites that helped me in 2013 [thank you message]

2103 has been the most awesome year since starting Chandoo.org.

This year, more than 10 million people have visited Chandoo.org and took steps to become awesome. Every day of 2013 felt blessed, inspired and wholesome, thanks to your support, love and kindness. Thanks to my travels (USA & Malaysia), I could meet hundreds of our readers face to face and get to know them better.

Many many thanks to you for your support in 2013. 

Apart from you, my reader, there are many others who helped me in the year 2013. This message is my way of thanking them.

People who helped me in 2013

Teachers & Gurus:

To run a business, web community & family it takes a lot of motivation, inspiration and energy. These people help me get that almost every day.

Excel Folks:

Hui, Jon Peltier, Debra Dalgleish, Mike Alexander, Dick Kuslieka, Rob Collie, Bill Jelen, Jordon Goldmeir, Colin Legg, Mike Girvin, Haseeb & Francis Hayes.

Forum Members:

SirJB7, Hui, Luke, Narayank, Bobhc, Debraj, Faseeh, Sajan, Shrivallabha, Kaushik and more. Special thanks to Jeff, Oldchippy & Smallman.

Business & Entrepreneurship:

James Altucher, MJ Demarco, Sir Richard Branson, MrMoneyMustache, Pat Flynn, Brandon Pearce

Authors & Books

Despite my travels, this year too I have managed to read a lot of books. Some of the authors & their notable books that inspired me are,

• Richard Branson – Losing my Virginity
• MJ Demarco – Millionaire Fast Lane
• Rob Collie – DAX formulas for Power Pivot (re-read many times)
• Eker T. Harv – Millionaire Mindset
• Joshua Foer – Moon-walking with Einstein
• Antonio Mendez – Argo
• George Mahood – Free Country

And many other…

Note: All the book links to Amazon are affiliate links. That means, if you purchase something after clicking on them, I get a few cents

Partners, Affiliates & Supporters

Running a business that can meet needs of millions of users is a big task. Thanks to my partners, affiliates and supporters, 2013 seemed like a breeze. I want to thank,

Robert Collie & Family: People say it is hard to find new friends as you cross 30. But Rob & Jocelyn Collie proved it otherwise. I first met Rob on Twitter in 2012. In early 2013, I invited him to teach a guest lesson in my Power Pivot online class. But the real friendship happened when I planned my live classes in USA. Rob offered to help me with on-ground logistics & co-teaching the class on PowerPivot. We became very good friends as soon as I landed in Cleveland in early May. The 3 months we spent in USA would have been very boring & dull had it not been for the Collies. I am really thankful to their wonderful hospitality, sharing nature and kindness. You are truly a great family.

Ms Chan, Jacqueline Wong & rest at PentaWise, Malaysia: Early this year, I got an email from Ms Chan asking ‘if I can live conduct classes in Malaysia’. I replied with a resounding YES, as Malaysia has been on my list of countries to visit. Finally in first week of October, I went to Kuala Lumpur to conduct a week-long class on Advanced Excel, Dashboards & Power Pivot. The whole experience was marvelous, thanks to thoughtful & kind support from Ms Chan, Ms Wong & rest of the team at PentaWise. They are full of smiles, passion and enthusiasm. And of course, their hospitality is unbelievably good. Thank you for your support.

Our Partners

• EduPristine: Paramdeep, Pawan & team at EduPristine help us in numerous ways. Thanks for making Chandoo.org customers awesome in Financial Modeling etc.
• Plum Solutions: For supporting our cause and recommending our courses to lovely readers in Australia and worldwide.
• MrExcel.com: for supporting our cause and recommending our courses to their amazing audience.

Our Affiliates:

This year was great for many of our affiliates too. Thanks to their support, we had more customers and they had more revenues. Some of our most prominent affiliates are,

Dashboard Spy, Francis, Daniel Ferry, Debra Dalgleish, Philip, Ken Puls, Oscar, Jimmy Pena, Victor Chan, Alan Murray and many more.

Press:

Thanks to YourStory & Satya for featuring Chandoo.org story in their magazine.

Publisher:

Thanks to Amazon Kindle Platform for letting me publish my book.

Customers & Readers

This year, more than 6,000 of you blessed me with your product purchases from us. More than 79,000 of you are now part of our RSS / Newsletter community. Many more continue to join us each day. Thank you so much for inviting me in to your life & taking time to learn from us.

Many thanks to RTI.org, Robbins Company, Renault Nissan and many other corporate clients for supporting us this year.

I am also thankful to our Excel forum members.

Special thanks to,

• Attendees of my live classes in USA (Columbus, Chicago & Washington DC) & Malaysia.
• Bill Jelen, for treating me to a pizza, few beers and a lovely evening at their house. Also, lending me his computer desk & chair when I was in USA.

Our Staff:

Most of what we do at Chandoo.org not remotely possible without our staff. I am amazed at their level of commitment and support to our mission to make you awesome. My heartfelt thanks to,

• Ravindra: for helping with various training enrollment, emails & customer service
• Vijay: for teaching VBA, answering student questions & supporting our products.
• Sameer: for answering student doubts in training programs. It was sad to see you go.
• Sujatha: for providing customer care & email support.
• Pothi: for taking care of our server & site infrastructure
• Chittibadrayya: for taking care of all the book-keeping & accounting aspect of our business

Special thanks to Jo (our iPhone developer) too.

Websites & Companies that helped me in 2013

I am thankful to Microsoft for making Excel so awesome.

I am also thankful to,

Email & Productivity: Google, iPhone

Website, Hosting & E-commerce: WordPress, GoDaddy, Wishlist Member, KnownHost, Amazon, PayPal, E-Junkie, 2Checkout, EBS, GumRoad, FastSpring, Thesis

Community & Connection: Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Skydrive, pinterest

Software: Paint.NET, Mozy, Notepad ++, Camtasia & Snagit, Skype, Rescue Time

Apps: Pulse, Flipboard, Feedly, Amazon Kindle

There are many other software, companies and websites that help me every day. I am really thankful to each and every one of these. Detailed listing here.

Last but not least…

There is someone else that deserve utmost thanks for everything I do at Chandoo.org.

• My family: Jo & kids support me and Chandoo.org in numerous ways. They shower me with love, humor and support everyday so that I can be awesome at what I do.
• All my close friends & relatives: for supporting me & encouraging me to do better.
• Special shout out to Ram, Murthy, Madhuri, Raghu and Suman for giving me shelter & company when I am on business trips.

PS… something for you:

Here is a nice little surprise for you. Open a new Excel file & in A1 type
=SUBSTITUTE(ADDRESS(2^7,HEX2DEC("154A"),4)&SUBSTITUTE("PIN","I","Y ")&ADDRESS(11^2+2^2+2+1,12^2+3^2,2^2)&" "&CHAR(DEGREES(ASIN(0.9999)))&BIN2HEX(REPT(1,3)&0)&MID(REPT("RA",2),2,2),2^7,"")