📖 Email PDFs -> Spreadsheet

⚾The Elevator Pitch

A software tool that pulls data from emailed PDFs and automatically places the data into a spreadsheet in a specified format.

🤝Introduction

Whether it be invoices, approval forms, or legal items, documents are still sent between companies and workers via PDF. PDFs are great because they are visible on any device, they can be protected from outside editing, and they are very useful for signing off on documents amongst many other benefits.

If you need to track information received from a PDF, you typically need to open the PDF and manually enter or copy the data from the document directly into your spreadsheet. The process of opening a PDF, entering the data, closing the PDF, and then repeating the process can be not only boring, but also time consuming. For many workers, the documents they pull information from are of the same or similar formatting every time.

There are plenty of software services that exist to eliminate this form of data entry (such as Docparser) But we want to make the process even easier by making it a one-to-two-step process directly from a user’s email, so they do not even need to extract, download, or even open the PDF.

 💡The Idea

The idea is a software service that will allow you to take a PDF format you consistently receive via email, highlight the locations where data from this format needs to be pulled, and finally, mark where in a corresponding spreadsheet the data should go. This is best explained through the following steps:

• After downloading the software, open a PDF that matches a format that you typically receive emails in. Highlight the key data that needs to be pulled from the PDF and group it accordingly:

• Once the key data points are identified and grouped, mark where in your spreadsheet they should be automatically added:

• Once that is saved, you have a template. Now, as emails come in with this type of PDF, you can simply click a button, select the format you saved, and the data will automatically be entered into your spreadsheet:

👷The Work

If you were to build this software, you would want it to have the following three features:

• The tool is intuitive and easily adoptable for all clients.

• The tool is flexible enough for all types of client needs.

• It’s the backbone a scalable business (As most SAAS products are).

The first two features are difficult to balance. Typically, the more intuitive something is, the easier it is to use. On the other hand, since there are many use cases for such a tool, you would want it to have likewise many features for added flexibility, which could be confusing to users who just need a simplified version.

To begin this business, it would make the most sense to start with a simple use case (i.e. Taking the PDF invoices of a company and writing a script to pull the payment amount from each document into a spreadsheet).

From there, you can work to build up additional features such as the ability to highlight PDFs, save templates, and allow for data to be deployed to multiple spreadsheets simultaneously. Working with early adopters of the software will help you address initial defects on the fly.

💸The Finances

Expected Sources of Revenue*

There are two possible methods for charging for this software: either per PDF or per Template. We think it would work best to charge at a per PDF rate with a Tiering system such as:

• 0-50 PDFs per month – Free

• 50-250 PDFs per month - $9.99 per month

• Unlimited PDFs per month - $24.99 per month

All of these rates are of course estimates and by no means a recommended pricing system.

A per PDF pricing system would be better than a per Template system because this product aims to be attractive to companies and resources that have VERY repetitive tasks. If someone needs 20+ different templates, the PDFs they are receiving are probably not that similar to each other, and this tool may not be for them.

Expected Expenses*

• Developer costs

• Marketing costs

• Servers

• Sales

•  Customer Support

*All values and revenues/expenses are estimates and do not necessarily reflect accurate costs or itemized revenues or expenses

👍The Good Stuff

• Flexible Sales – Having unlimited and flexible templates means this software can be sold across different industries and teams.

• Potential Integration with AI – Imagine a similar software that reads long PDFs/Documents from your email and sends the key points to you.

👎The Risks

• PDF Read Issues – Unfortunately, sometimes PDFs are really poorly formatted/faded, especially if they have been scanned previously.

• Copycats – Software tools to read PDF files are nothing new. The in-email functionality is the new innovation here, but there are plenty of capable developers who could develop this functionality themselves.

📚For the Road

• Adobe has already released a PDF AI Reader/Summarizer

• Tracing the Journey and Future of PDF Technology, From Origins to AI

• Since Adobe is Expensive - The Top 10 Adobe Acrobat Alternatives & Competitors in 2024