Paul Barnhurst started his own business after three software vendors contacted him in one week, with an 18-month runway.
He grew LinkedIn from 5,000 to 60,000 followers by posting daily for almost two years, and his business now spans three podcasts, training, and vendor advisory.
Tracelight CEO Pete Fuller says the startup will compete for the top 1 percent of Excel users rather than fight Microsoft and Anthropic for the billion general users.
Fuller says Anthropic's Claude for Excel launch was a huge moment that brought Tracelight much more attention, even though he did not expect the labs to ship Excel add-ins.