Melder

What do they actually do

Melder makes an Excel add‑in that embeds an AI assistant and AI-backed formulas directly inside Microsoft Excel. Users can drop PDFs and other files into cells, then use functions like =GEN() and =EXTRACT() to summarize, extract fields, classify, transform text or tables, clean data, and generate charts—all from within the workbook. A sidebar assistant helps set up workflows and build models step by step without hand‑writing complex formulas or switching tools (homepage, YC profile).

The product is live via an “Add to Excel” flow and is listed on the Microsoft Marketplace. It’s sold on paid tiers (Pro $50/mo, Ultra $200/mo) with a Team plan for shared file handling, centralized billing, and priority support (pricing, Marketplace listing). Public examples center on analysts consolidating data across spreadsheets, PDFs, and ERPs in workflows like supply‑chain and spend analysis (YC profile, LinkedIn use case).

Who are their target customer(s)

• Independent analyst or freelancer who builds Excel models and reports: Spends hours writing and debugging formulas, copying data from PDFs and spreadsheets, and cleaning outputs before analysis. Wants faster ways to extract fields, summarize documents, and automate repetitive steps in Excel (homepage, YC profile).
• Supply‑chain analyst at a mid‑sized company: Shipment, invoice, and vendor data lives across PDFs, ERPs, and many sheets, making extraction and reconciliation slow and error‑prone. Needs reliable PDF‑to‑cell extraction and table cleanup to get to analysis faster (LinkedIn use case, YC profile).
• FP&A or finance team member running monthly reporting: Repeats the same data cleaning and charting each month and maintains shared models that are inconsistent across teammates. Wants standardizable workflows and shared file/formula outputs inside Excel (pricing, homepage).
• Procurement / accounts‑payable operator processing invoices: Manually pulls line items and vendor details from hundreds of PDF invoices into Excel for matching and payment, which is tedious and error‑prone. Needs dependable in‑cell extraction and document handling (homepage, YC profile).
• Small analytics or ops team without engineering support: Needs quick, ad‑hoc analysis and connectors but lacks time or engineers to build pipelines, so work stays in spreadsheets. Wants an assistant that builds workbook outputs and automations inside Excel (homepage, pricing).

How would they acquire their first 10, 50, and 100 customers

• First 10: Personally recruit analysts and freelancers from the team’s network, YC contacts, and Excel communities; offer 1:1 onboarding and hands‑on help importing a prospect’s files to deliver value in a single session, then capture case studies and testimonials (YC profile).
• First 50: Publish templates and short video walkthroughs for supply‑chain, FP&A, and invoice extraction; distribute in Excel/finance forums, Reddit, and LinkedIn, and partner with Excel influencers/consultants. Run weekly webinars to convert attendees into trials using early case studies as social proof.
• First 100: Tighten self‑serve via the Microsoft Marketplace listing and onboarding, run targeted LinkedIn ads to mid‑market finance/procurement managers, and convert top trials into paid Team pilots with centralized billing. Start channel partnerships with consultants and Microsoft partners to reach more mid‑market buyers (Marketplace listing, pricing).

What is the rough total addressable market

Top-down context:

Excel ships with Microsoft 365, which has a very large commercial base—Microsoft reported “over 400 million” paid Office 365 commercial seats in FY24 Q2, and 82.5 million consumer subscribers in FY24, underscoring the ubiquity of the suite (MSFT FY24 Q2 earnings call, MSFT 2024 Annual Report).

Bottom-up calculation:

Focus on Excel‑heavy roles in finance, supply chain, and procurement at SMB/mid‑market firms: assume 250,000 target companies globally, average 5 seats per company, and $600/year blended ARR per seat → ~1.25 million seats and ~$750M SAM; expanding seat density to 10 and enterprise coverage roughly doubles this to ~$1.5B.

Assumptions:

• Initial focus is SMB/mid‑market firms (50–1,000 employees) across North America and Europe with some global expansion.
• Average paid seat ARR blends Pro/Ultra/Team to ~$600/year.
• Penetration estimate of 5–10 seats per company reflects analyst/ops users, not all Microsoft 365 users.

Who are some of their notable competitors

• Microsoft Copilot (Copilot in Excel): Built‑in AI for Excel that answers questions about sheets, generates/explains formulas, and helps insert data—directly overlapping with “AI inside Excel” for analysts.
• GPT for Sheets™ & Docs™ / GPT for Excel (Talarian): Adds LLM‑powered functions to spreadsheets and docs (Google Sheets and an Excel/Word add‑in) to run prompts at scale from cells.
• Formula Bot (FormulaBot / Excel AI): Converts natural language to Excel formulas, generates charts/analysis, and includes PDF→Excel conversion—competes on removing manual formula writing and document‑to‑sheet steps.
• PromptLoop: A spreadsheet add‑on to apply one GPT‑style prompt across many rows for classification, summarization, and rewrites, targeting in‑sheet LLM transforms.
• Docparser: Document parsing tool focused on extracting structured fields from PDFs (e.g., invoices, POs) into Excel/CSV, competing on invoice and document‑to‑table workflows.