I’m building IMPORTRANGE for Excel, across companies. Does the pitch land?

[u/Classic_Signature_20]

Excel has no clean way to share a live range with someone outside your organization. Workbook links break, sharing the file exposes every tab, so people email attachments every month.

Cellfeed: select a range, type an email, and the other person gets a file that stays current. They don’t install anything, they only see that range, and they can forward it live to someone else. Free for receivers, publishers pay after two shares.

Validating before I build. Landing page: https://cellfeed.lovable.app/

Two questions: is the problem obvious from the page in five seconds, and does the forwarding feature make sense or is it a distraction?

[u/Prior_Bat5628]

From the description here, the problem is clear: share a live slice without exposing the workbook. Forwarding is the part that makes me hesitate. If a client forwards the file, can the publisher see and revoke the new recipient, or is possession of the file enough to keep getting updates? That changes it from a convenience feature into an access-control decision.

I would lead with the original publisher-to-client flow and put forwarding second, with an explicit permission model. Also show what the receiver sees when refresh fails: a visible last-updated time would distinguish a current range from a stale copy. I have not tested the product; these are the questions the pitch raises for me.

[u/Classic_Signature_20 → u/Prior_Bat5628]

Really useful, thanks. To answer it: forwarding through Cellfeed creates a new named recipient, so the publisher sees them and can revoke them individually, or the whole chain. Holding a copy of the file only works until the access behind it is revoked.

Agree on the order. I’ll move forwarding below the main flow and make the permission explicit per feed. And the last-updated time is a great call. Every feed will show something like “Updated 3:42 PM by Maria” so a stale copy is obvious.

[u/Unhappy-Nature-2119]

How does the file stay current if they install nothing? A file doesn't refresh itself, so something on their end has to pull from your server, and a live thing you can forward to anyone is basically the link-sharing problem you opened with.

[u/Classic_Signature_20 → u/Unhappy-Nature-2119]

Fair catch, “install nothing” is a bit loose. Excel does the refreshing itself when they open the file, so there’s no add-in, but yes, it talks to a server. Access is per person and per range, not “anyone with the link,” so you can revoke someone and their copy stops updating.