I Built a Tool Because One Person Was Keeping a Secret Spreadsheet

I found out about the spreadsheet by accident. Someone shared their screen during a call, and there it was. A completely separate system they’d built for themselves because our product didn’t handle one part of their job properly. It was surprisingly good. They had formulas, colors, filters, and a whole little workflow. I asked how long they’d been maintaining it. “About eight months.” Eight months! So I rebuilt the useful part in Greta and showed it back to them. They immediately found three things I’d misunderstood. We fixed those. Then two other people asked to use it. That’s when it became obvious the spreadsheet wasn’t really a personal workaround. It was evidence of a product gap. People will build surprisingly sophisticated things themselves when a missing feature matters enough