Why Jetti Sheets was built into Google Sheets
Most analytics tools start with the assumption that your data lives “somewhere else” such as a warehouse, a BI tool, or an internal dashboard. But in conversations with operators and analysts, we kept hearing a different reality:
The work already happens in spreadsheets.
Exports land in Sheets. Finance reviews in Sheets. Leaders ask “can you break this out by segment?” and the fastest way to answer is still Sheets.
So when we decided to build Jetti Sheets, we made an intentional choice: build it as a Google Sheets add-on (often casually called a Google Sheets extension) so insights show up inside the workflow teams already use every week.
This post breaks down that decision, the alternatives we considered, and what it unlocks for cohort analysis and snowball analysis, especially for teams that need answers quickly without rebuilding their entire stack.
What is a Google Sheets add-on?
A Google Sheets add-on is software that runs inside Google Sheets to extend what spreadsheets can do, often by adding a sidebar UI, custom menus, and workflow automation.
In practice, this means you can keep your data and collaboration in a spreadsheet, while the add-on handles the heavy lifting: shaping data, generating analyses, and packaging results in a way that is easy to share.
That “stay where you are” model matters more than it sounds.
The real problem we were trying to solve
Cohort analysis and snowball analysis are not new concepts. The problem is that they are often slow to produce in real life:
- Data exports do not match your template
- IDs are not consistent
- Dates are messy
- You lose hours cleaning and reshaping before analysis even begins
We built Jetti Sheets to reduce the cost of getting to a trustworthy answer, especially when the end result still needs to live in a spreadsheet someone can review, tweak, and present.
Why building inside Google Sheets was the best default
1) It matches how teams already collaborate
Google Sheets is where teams comment, share, and iterate quickly. If your analysis lives somewhere else, you introduce friction: exporting, screenshots, version mismatches, and “which dashboard is correct?”
By living inside Sheets, Jetti keeps the work closer to the conversations where decisions are made.
2) It is faster to adopt because it does not force a workflow rewrite
A web app can be powerful, but it often becomes an additional destination your team has to learn, maintain, and keep in sync with the spreadsheet version of truth.
A Sheets add-on lets teams start with what they already have: exported data, existing tabs, and existing stakeholders.
3) It is a natural fit for cohort analysis and snowball analysis
Two reasons spreadsheets remain durable for revenue analytics:
- They are inspectable. People trust what they can see and sanity-check.
- They are flexible. When someone asks, “Can we segment this by plan?” you can add a column and keep moving.
Jetti is designed to accelerate the path from messy exports to structured analysis to a table you can actually use.
4) It complements Google Workspace permissions and sharing
In Google Workspace, access controls and sharing are already baked into how teams work. Our approach is designed to keep work aligned with that environment so teams can collaborate without adding another tool surface area to manage.
The alternatives we considered (and why we did not start there)
Here is the short version of the tradeoffs we mapped before committing:
Google Sheets Add-On (Jetti today)
Why it’s compelling: Built for existing workflows; collaboration-native; works where exports already land; easy to share outputs.
Excel Add-In
Why it’s compelling: Huge ecosystem; strong enterprise presence; great long-term channel.
Why we started elsewhere: For the analysts we spoke to, a Google Sheets add-on fit current workflows better; Excel remains on our roadmap.
Standalone Web App
Why it’s compelling: Maximum UI flexibility; can support many workflows.
Why we started elsewhere: Often forces teams to maintain “two sources of truth” (app + spreadsheet); less DIY flexibility for analysts who want to adjust and validate outputs.
Other integrations
Why it’s compelling: Connectors can reduce manual work across tools.
Why we started elsewhere: We’re open to additional integrations as the roadmap evolves.
What this unlocks for day-to-day analytics
When the tool is embedded where the work happens, a few practical things get easier:
- Faster time-to-first-analysis: fewer “setup steps” before you can run a cohort table or snowball view
- More iteration: it is easier to test a segmentation cut, validate anomalies, and keep the output presentation-ready
- Easier handoffs: stakeholders can open the same Sheet and understand what changed without scheduling a dashboard walkthrough
That is the core bet: reduce friction without reducing rigor.
Where we are going next
We are building Jetti Sheets to be the fastest way to produce cohort analysis and snowball analysis you can trust, inside the spreadsheet workflow teams already use.
Excel is on our roadmap, and we are always evaluating adjacent integrations that keep the same principle intact: meet teams where their operational data already lives, and make it dramatically faster to get to the insight.
If you are exploring cohort analysis in Google Sheets or you have built fragile spreadsheet templates that keep breaking, we would love to learn about your workflow.
Further Questions
Is a Google Sheets add-on the same as a Google Sheets extension?
Many people use the terms interchangeably. Google typically uses “add-ons” for tools that extend Sheets with menus, sidebars, and workflows.
Can you do cohort analysis in Google Sheets?
Yes. Sheets is a common place teams build cohort tables, especially from exported revenue or customer data. Jetti exists to make that workflow faster and more reliable.
What is snowball analysis?
Snowball analysis is a way to view compounding growth dynamics over time, often used in SaaS revenue analytics to separate what is expanding from what is contracting.