Spreadsheets and models

A spreadsheet looks like the least valuable thing a person can sell, and it is frequently the opposite. What a buyer lacks is not the ability to build a spreadsheet, it is confidence in the assumptions and the structure — which columns matter, how the formulas should chain, what a sensible model looks like. A working model someone else has already debugged is worth real money to a business, which is why financial models regularly sell for more than courses.

Usability drives the price more than complexity does. A model with colour-coded inputs, protected formulas, a short instruction block and one worked example can be driven by a stranger; a more sophisticated model that nobody can navigate will generate support questions that exceed the purchase price. The documentation is not a nicety here, it is the difference between a product and a liability.

What it will not do is make the buyer's decisions for them. A model shows the consequence of an assumption, not whether the assumption is right, and buyers who expect the second will be disappointed. Saying plainly that it is a tool for testing assumptions rather than a source of them sets the right expectation and reduces the arguments.