While not nearly as innovative as "A messaging app for messaging Ethan," we are pretty excited about this launch. You shouldn't have to choose the structure of your data before you start to write - that's why we wanted to enable you to mix and match spreadsheets with all the other content Quip supports, from text to images to lists.
Let us know what you think!
Really exciting to see this implementation--the collaborative view of sheets, the use of multiple sheets in a quip doc, the zoom to full screen, the handling of labels, etc. Lots of really interesting things.
Most interesting is how this is reflective of the very old Claris/Apple Works and is bringing back the notion that an integrated document type reimagined for a mobile/collaborative/cloud world can be very exciting.
@btaylor have you thought about Ethan integration? ;)
Congrats on the launch. I'm curious to hear about the surprises you've had building Quip. There are several obvious use cases and features to build, based on existing behaviors and products but which were the most surprising that you didn't foresee in the beginning?
@rrhoover Checklists. We built them from the beginning, but they are the "ah ha" moment for many more people than I would have expected, from wedding planning to grocery lists to engineering team task lists.
Made us realize we are creating a collaboration product more than we are creating a productivity tool.
@btaylor that's really interesting. what's the main difference between a collaboration product vs productivity tool? at a high level one would assume it's the same thing but it definitely isnt.
From the day I started using Quip, I couldn't wait for them to take on spreadsheets. I've been in their spreadsheets beta and am impressed by how their team is rethinking the entire experience; love the simple transition to and from full-screen view.
Overall, Quip just keeps getting better. They constantly add delightful features that make getting work done super easy as you jump between devices. Nice work @btaylor & team!
how do you think about the power user experience? i find Google Docs so limiting relative to the experience that I had with the tools I had with Excel. (disclosure: i used to be in finance)
@josephkerns By embedding spreadsheets in broader documents, we expect the use cases for Quip will be those that benefit from multimedia, e.g., a report with text, graphs, and spreadsheets. Those "power" uses of Spreadsheets that are exclusively about pivot tables and number crunching I expect will remain in Excel and we don't think we can change that in the short term.
Very cool to see this, there's a growing trend of tools (and people in general) treating work content as simply content, not the files (doc vs excel spreadsheet) they're encased in. Spaces.pm (which was acquired by Slack recently) seemed to be using a similar approach but I wasn't able to sign up. Either way, I think it's the future.
@btaylor I don't know if you've ever used Catch (similar product that shut down last year), but I had a conversation with their founder awhile back who said that checklists was what made sharing just take off for them. I was surprised when I heard that too.
Quip enhances the idea of Google Docs with more advanced collaboration functions which is great if you are looking for one place to work and communicate with your team on documents.
Pros:
communication and collaboration within one application, easy searching, offline editing
I haven't seen any other app which would offer a package of communication and collaboration in one simple and user-friendly solution.
Despite being quite advanced, Quip does a great job in delivering a simple, user-friendly product and we're happy to recommend it at picksaas to those looking for a great collaboration app.
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Quip enhances the idea of Google Docs with more advanced collaboration functions which is great if you are looking for one place to work and communicate with your team on documents.
Pros:communication and collaboration within one application, easy searching, offline editing
Cons:lacks some integrations
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