People & websites that helped me in 2014 [thank you message]

2014 has been the most awesome year since starting Chandoo.org

Thank you so much for making it happen. This year, more than 10 million people visited our site, learned something and took first step to become awesome in their work. Each & every day of 2014 felt invigorating, exciting & blessed. I could meet 100s of you face to face during my travels to Houston & Dallas in September this year.

A big thanks to you, my reader, for supporting me and choosing chandoo.org as partner in your journey to awesomeness.

Apart from our readers, there are also countless people, websites, books, companies which helped me have a fantastic year. This message is my way of saying thanks to them.

People who helped me in 2014

Teachers & gurus:

Running a small business focusing on knowledge requires a lot of training, help and mentoring. Thanks to all these wonderful people who motivated me, taught me, inspired me and corrected me in this year.

Excel folks:

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

Forum members:

SirJB7, Hui, Luke, Narayank, Bobhc, Debraj, Faseeh, Sajan, Shrivallabha, Kaushik and more.

Business & entrepreneurship:

Pat Flynn, MJ Demarco, MrMoneyMustache, Patrick & Amy Porterfield

Health & fitness:

adc, Thomas Andersen & Tim Ferris

Authors & books

This year has been incredibly satisfying in-terms of reading books. I read quite a books and learned so much.

Some of the authors & their books that inspired me are,

• Andre Agassi – Open
• Sachin Tendulkar – Playing it my way
• Tim Ferris – 4 Hour body
• John Foreman – Data Smart
• Mike Girvin – Ctrl + Shift + Enter
• Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner – Think like a freak
• William Dalrymple – In Xanadu
• Wayne Winston – Data analysis & business modeling

Note: all the books are Amazon Affiliate links. That means, if you click and purchase a book thru above links, I will get a few cents from Amazon.

Partners, Affiliates & Supporters

Chandoo.org is able to stand tall & help millions of users world wide because it stands on the shoulders of many giants & supporters.

Our partners:

BizNet Software: An email from Hanna (who works at BizNet Software) started it all. I am very thankful to staff at BizNet (especially Lori, Hanna, Eric & George) for inviting me to Excelapalooza 2014 conference in Dallas. It was a very memorable event in 2014 and I really enjoyed spending time with all of you & your users. Thank you.

Jocelyn & Robert Collie: Thanks for helping me with ground logistics for running Advanced Excel & Power Pivot Masterclass in Houston

PASS BA & Jen Stirrup:  Thank you so much for inviting me to speak at PASS BA 2015 conference. I am super excited to be part of this prestigious conference and eagerly looking forward to it. Know more & signup.

Plum Solutions: Thank you Danielle for doing all the ground work to conduct another round of Excel & Power Pivot masterclasses in Australia in 2015. Know more & signup here.

EduPristine: Thanks to Pawan, Paramdeep & rest of the staff at EduPristine for partnering with Chandoo.org in running Financial Modeling classes.

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, Brad Edgar and many more.

Customers & Readers

In 2014, more than 6,250 people purchased courses, templates, ebooks or products from Chandoo.org. More than 100,000 people are now members of our newsletter / RSS feed. More than 8,000 people regularly tune in to Chandoo.org podcast too. Many more people discover and join our little community every day. Thank you so much for inviting me to your life & letting me help you. My sincere & heart-felt thanks to each and every one of you.

Many thanks to Novartis India for hiring me as their Excel trainer. Special thanks to KONE Cranes, Canon, Xerox and AtlasAir for purchasing team licenses of our training programs.

I am also thankful to our Excel Forum members, who continue to share their knowledge & skills selflessly.

Special thanks also to,

• Delegates of my Advanced Excel & Power Pivot Masterclass in Houston, USA
• Attendees of my sessions in Excelapalooza 2014 in Dallas, USA
• Shon, Jim & Brett from Lloyd’s Register for sharing awesome video testimonials
• Rosalyn & Kari from Amaxra for sharing a cup of coffee & interesting discussions while I was in Houston
• All our podcast listeners
• Everyone who bought a copy of The VLOOKUP Book thru Amazon
• David Hager, for treating me to a pizza & sharing many Excel insights while I was in Houston.
• Rick, Oz & Jordan for inviting me to be a part of Excel TV interview.

Our staff

Chandoo.org staff are the silent soldiers helping me achieve our mission – “to make you awesome in Excel”. I am deeply thankful to their efforts & work ethic.

• Ravindra: for handling student enrollments, customer support & email work
• Joya: for creating podcast transcripts
• Pothi: for maintaining Chandoo.org webservers and helping our site run smoothly
• Narayan: for answering student questions & doubts
• Chittibadrayya: for taking care of our accounting & financial reporting stuff
• Vijay: for teaching VBA and answering student questions
• Jo (my wife): for helping me with customer support emails.

Companies & websites that helped me

I am thankful to Microsoft for creating Excel and helping me make a living out of it.

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, libsyn

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

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

Apps: 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…

I am able to perform at my best levels & help you because there is someone else that support, encourage and inspire me every day.

• 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.

PS… something for you:

Here is a nice little surprise for you. Open a new Excel file & in A1 type

=SUBSTITUTE(LEFT(ADDRESS(2^3^2, SUMPRODUCT(MID(REPLACE(REPT("10",6), 7,2,10^2),
ROW($Z$1:$Z$13),1)+0,2^(13-ROW($Z$1:$Z$13))),BIN2DEC("100"),1),3) 
& SUBSTITUTE("PIE",LEFT(ADDRESS(10^2, HEX2DEC("EF"),(7-3),1),2),"Y N")
& ADDRESS(11^2+2^2+2+1,20*20*10+2*1*1+1,2^2)
& SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE("BEARD",DEC2HEX(REPT(1,2)),""),"D",""),"Y128", " Y")