What happened when two highly-skilled Excel leaders took on the “best of the best” in the sport? Paul Barnhurst reveals the inside story when he pitted his FP&A-based Excel wits in the The Financial Modeling World Cup (FMWC). Taking the ultimate test alongside him is fellow-first timer “Excel Ninja” Ajay Patel, who teaches thousands of subscribers advanced Excel.
Giving his opnion on the two Excel jousters is Andrew Grigolyunovich, The Financial Modeling World Cup Founder and founder of AG Capital. The trio talk Excel-at-speed, improving skills, and the functions they can’t live without.
- Getting to know Andrew Grigolyunovich: From being a CFO at 21 to founding the Financial Modeling World Cup
- Ajay Patel (aka the Excel Ninja) a fifth degree black belt in Tang Soo Do talks his favorite Excel functions and his FMWC ultimate test
- Optimization planning and Analysis vs FP&A
- The inside story of Paul and Ajay’s grueling FMWC experience
- Secrets to creating classic Excel use cases
- Advice for getting started in competitive Excel
- Best advice to improve your Excel skills
Guests:
Andrew Grigolyunovich, Financial Modeling World Cup: Founder & CEO of AG Capital
https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewgrig/
Ajay Patel, The Excel Ninja, Founder of the Excel Dojo
https://www.linkedin.com/in/theexceldojo/
Paul Barnhurst:
Hello everyone. Welcome to FP&A Today, I am your host, Paul Barnhurst, aka the FP&A Guy. FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails, the financial planning and analysis platform for Excel users. Every week we welcome a leader from the world of financial planning and analysis. Today, I’m delighted to be joined by two people. I have Ajay Patel and Andrew Grigolyunovich with me, and I’m really excited to have both of them. Little bit about Ajay Ajay comes to us from Philadelphia. If you follow him on LinkedIn, you’ll know him as the Excel Ninja. He has his newsletter called the Excel Dojo. His background is mechanical engineering. Prior to starting his own business, he worked as a business planning and process analyst. So that’s a little bit about aj. And then Andrew comes to us from Latvia. He is the founder and CFO of Financial Modeling World Cup CFO templates.com and AG Capital. So I, something tells me he keeps himself plenty busy. He’s also a chartered financial analyst from the CFA Institute, and he recently earned the prestigious master financial modeler from the Financial Modeling Institute. So, Ajay Andrew, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having us,
Andrew Grigolyunovich:
Paul. Thank you so much.
Paul Barnhurst:
Alright, well, why don’t we start with just giving you each an opportunity to tell us a little bit about yourself, get a little bit more of your background and how you ended up doing what you’re doing today. So we’ll start with you, Andrew.
Andrew Grigolyunovich:
Well it, it, it’s been a very interesting background. So actually I’ve been doing finance for my, for the whole of my professional life. Actually, I graduated from a very good very good business school, Stockholm School of Economics in Riga. And that was the greatest time in the history of our country when we just recently regained independence. And people like me who had like very good western education could get very, very good career perspectives because most of the people were not really able to move businesses forward. And at the age of 21, I became a CFO, right from the <laugh> from the university, like of a of a quite a big retail company. It was one of the biggest in our local country, in our small country, but still it had like 250250 employees, 70 locations.
It was a cell phone retailer, you know, the booming industry by that time. And so that was the time when I got into Excel modeling, into budgeting financial planning worked in that business in the, then in the other business of the same owners for almost 10 years. And then founded my own consulting, AG Capital back in 2010. And then in 2020, that was the time that that was the time to, to start the Financial Modeling World Cup. I live in Riga, Latvia, that’s a small country in the north of the European Union. And, but, but I work with clients from all, all over the world. Mostly from the United States but also from EU, Australia, UK, and other countries.
Paul Barnhurst:
Great. Thank you for that introduction, Andrew. I appreciate it. And I said glad you could be here with us. Ajay, do you wanna give us a little bit of your background and how you ended up doing what you’re doing today?
Ajay Patel:
Sure. So first thank you Paul so much for having me and, and Andrew on this podcast. Andrew, it’s great to meet with you. I’m looking forward to the conversation. So my background is, I’m a I’m an engineer, right? So here we are talking about the financial modeling World Cup, and I’m an engineer. So that, what kind of sense does that make? So if you’ve, you know, eng any engineers, we actually very much love Excel as well, as much as the FP&A guys accounting world. We are, we are huge into it. We love messing around with it. So it’s for me, you know, starting out in Excel in college, really kind of learning a really solid foundation, then entering the the workforce as an engineer. And along the way what happened was, I met a gentleman by the name of Bill Gerstad, who at the time was old enough to be my father.
And I had been using my, at the time what I realize now, primitive Excel skills to do some project management work. And one day came up to my cubicle and was asking me what was taking so long to get something done. And I’m thinking to myself, there’s no way you’re, you’re getting any of your work done faster than me. I, I’m using Excel. And he said, come over here, young Padawan. And he, and he showed me his completely automated Excel spreadsheet complete with VBA. And so he took me under his wing and, and taught me so much. And, and it helped me so much in my career because as I progressed from that small manufacturing company into the oil and gas and energy industry, where, as you mentioned before, I ended up in optimization planning and analysis I was able to take all of those lessons learned over the years and help me continue to stand apart from the crowd.
And I was always known as the Excel guy under those circumstances. And, you know, when I left the corporate world and I wanted to do something, I thought, you know what? I want to, I wanna help everybody that I can, just like Bill helped me and I wanna teach Excel to as many people as possible because it gave me the opportunity to stand apart. It gave me the opportunity to, to, to grow in my career and bring something, you know, a new perspective to the way we did things. And now I have the, I have this knowledge and I just wanna share it with as many people as possible so they can do the same thing. And I can help people upskill so they can have better opportunities in life as well.
Paul Barnhurst:
Thank you. I appreciate that, Ajay. And yeah, that’s a great background. Both of you have appreciate you telling the story. What we’re gonna do is we like to start by just getting to know our guests a little better. So I have this section, it’s kind of not rapid fire, but you get 30 seconds. So limited, you know, quick answers where we just ask you four questions about yourself. And since I have two guests, it’s the first time I got to do this one with two guests. We’re gonna go through all four questions with you, Ajay , and then we’ll do all four with you, Andrew. So I’m gonna run through these and the idea is to be, you know, relatively quick. Okay. So what is something interesting about you? Not many people know Ajay.
Ajay Patel:
This is a great question. So I am the Excel ninja and my newsletter is the Excel Dojo. And the reason I chose that moniker is I actually studied martial arts for over 25 years of my life. I’m a fifth degree black belt in Tang Soo Do. And so the idea of becoming a teacher to teach others is actually very natural to me. So many people have asked me and questioned whether I could use the moniker Excel ninja and have the Excel dojo. And I find it very, very relevant to my life because studying martial arts has actually been a, a mainstay of it. So.
Paul Barnhurst:
Great. Thank you. Appreciate that one. So the next one, if you could meet one person in the world, get or alive, who would you meet and why?
Ajay Patel:
This is a great question. And being a mechanical engineer we, we find, I find myself always saying this one, one goofy thing. So whenever I get in a plane, I always get nervous and I always start thinking, come on Mr. Newton, come on Mr. Newton. because we all know that the father of, of modern science because he created the the system of calculus is Sir Isaac Newton. So the things he came up with, the things he developed, I’m a mechanical engineer, obviously. Newtonian mechanics sir Isaac Newton would be it. And a close second place would be Benjamin Franklin.
Paul Barnhurst:
Got it. Thanks love, love those answers. So next one, what is the last thing you Googled looked up on YouTube or searched using generative AI that had to do with either finance FP&A or Excel?
Ajay Patel:
Oh, geez. So the last thing that I, so it would, it would be Excel and
Paul Barnhurst:
<Laugh>,
Ajay Patel:
This is embarrassing ’cause I can’t really remember the last thing that I Googled. I guess if I went into my chat G P T history, I would know, but, you know, I did put out a newsletter, oh, you know what it was? I put out a newsletter last week. And oftentimes I will use chat G PT to maybe verify things. So one of the things I love to do within my newsletters and any content I create is when I put out a formula such as the filter formula that’s coming out in a couple weeks, I like to make sure that I have the syntax correct, but also the explanations of each of the iterative syntax. So the last thing I actually did in chat G P T was I said, Hey, chat, gimme the exact syntax and thethe explanation for each part of the syntax for the filter formula, which is that great digital array
Paul Barnhurst:
<Laugh>, that that one works. So the last question here, what’s your favorite Excel function or feature? Favorite thing about Excel?
Ajay Patel:
Oh God. Well, my favorite thing about Excel, to be honest with you really has been VBA only. And, and in this case, the reason why is, is because with VBA, it meant so much to pushing me forward in my career. That said, these new data arrays, the, the spill arrays, they’re starting to take over ’cause they’re so neat, and you can do so many cool things with them, especially when you start nesting them within each other.
Paul Barnhurst:
They are, they are pretty amazing for sure. So now we’re gonna run through those same questions with you, Andrew. So the first one is something interesting about you. Not many people know
Andrew Grigolyunovich:
Well probably the fact that I got appointed as CFO of a of a company at, at the age of, at, at the age of 21.
Paul Barnhurst:
I can’t imagine that had to be pretty overwhelming hats off to you. I know. I couldn’t have done that at 21, so that, that’s amazing. We have to dig into that one a little later. So next one, if you could meet any one person dead or alive, who would you meet and why?
Andrew Grigolyunovich:
Yeah, that, that’s an interesting question actually. I was thinking through that. For my current work, I’m kind of seem to be quite okay with the surroundings that I have. But out of curiosity, it would be interesting for me to meet I think it was Emperor Trajan who was leading Roman Empire back in around the year hundred 1,315 of ad where, which was the time when the Roman Empire was the you know, got, was, was at its at its peak mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. And it would be interesting to see like from that it was only downhill. It would be interesting to see what was the vision of the person by that time. Like, did, did he foresees gonna be getting worse or did they only continue to build, you know, the hockey sticks? Like, we’re gonna expand, expand, expand, and how, how did that work there?
Paul Barnhurst:
I laughed that you said the hockey sticks. We’ve all seen that if we’ve done any kind of planning.
Andrew Grigolyunovich:
Oh yeah. So that’s
Paul Barnhurst:
A, that’s a good one.
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So next one, what’s the last thing you Googled? Looked up on YouTube or used, you know, generative AI related to finance fp and a or Excel.
Andrew Grigolyunovich:
Okay, that was a, that was a funny, yeah, well, a bit of background. I am very good at formulas writing formulas in Excel. I didn’t do VBA or try to avoid it until a project a couple of years ago when I had to basically it was getting so complicated that there was only, the only way for me to, to, to complete that was starting to run to do it through VBA. And I Googled V B A, like lots of the things wrote, wrote the model for the clients, and they didn’t understand. I was learning by doing, actually, they referred to me as a, you know, guru of VBA at that point.
Paul Barnhurst:
That’s funny. Well, thank you for sharing that one. And then last one here, what’s your favorite Excel kind of function or feature?
Andrew Grigolyunovich:
Data tables. The fact that you can run various scenarios you know, for the financial modeling World Cup, especially for the Microsoft Excel World Championships, that’s the must have that you need to know. Like you soolve one question and then you run it through the whole level.
Paul Barnhurst:
That’s one I need to use more often. I’ve never been a hu I understand it and I’ve used it some, but I’ve never used it a lot. I need to brush up on it. It’s been a while. I see Ajay smiling there. He is thinking about data tables.
Ajay Patel:
Yeah, I’m, I’m realizing how many of my problems it would <laugh> help me with inside of the my F M W C challenge. Now I’m like, wait a minute. That was the answer. Data Tables
Paul Barnhurst:
<Laugh>.
Andrew Grigolyunovich:
Yes.
Paul Barnhurst:
Well, we’ll get we’ll get to that one here in a minute about that experience. But Andrew, can you, I just, can you tell us the story, the backstory of how the financial modeling World Cup came about, how you end up founding that?
Andrew Grigolyunovich:
Yeah, so it’s a, it’s a long, it’s an eight year long story because this is basically a successor, the National Modeling World Cup. It’s, it’s a successor of a different competition that was named ModelOf. It was founded by two guys from Australia back in 2012, and I was a, a keen player there. So I it was, it was an annual thing, so only once a year you could compete. And I was playing there every year. So really waiting for the, for the competition and made it to the finals twice every year. They they, they had like 16 finalists, so made it in 2016 to London in 2017 to New York Finals. But then the guys, you know, they developed this business, couple of other businesses, and they just sold this one to new owners.
And this kind of you know, stopped. And then they COVIDcame and it’s really looked at, nothing’s gonna continue there. So what happened is that I was really waiting for, well, on one hand, I was waiting for, for the current for the tournament of 2020 and like for half a year, there were like, not a single update on the on the social media of that of that competition. And additionally, I also knew that you know, there are ways to improve that. So instead of annual thing, I was, I would love to have a monthly competition. I would like to have some, you know, more transparent rankings because previously they didn’t only announce the winners, not, not the whole, the whole squad. I wanted to have let’s say solution files, not just the problem files and so on and so on. So there was really lots of different ideas that I have, you know, gathered through these years. And I kind of wanted to, to have it there. And at one point I just, you know, so okay, like maybe that’s the time to do something myself. And maybe this is the time that our team at AG Capital could start doing that. And this is basically when several of us came together and this FMWC,
Paul Barnhurst:
Appreciate that backstory, and I’m glad you did. You know, it seems like it’s growing and going well, and that’s a great thing. I know we see it on Excel now, and I know next week, August 4th, and that will probably be, when this is released, it will already happened, but the Excel eSports is going on, and, you know, they’re having an elimination style competition, so that’s exciting. It will be fun. I’ve seen a lot of the posts on LinkedIn from different people about that.
Andrew Grigolyunovich:
Yeah, it’s gonna be really an exciting one.
Paul Barnhurst:
That one I bet will be really exciting. That’s the first time you’ve done that format, right? Where you’ve done an elimination style like that every five minutes,
Andrew Grigolyunovich:
That’s gonna be a premiere. So that’s gonna be, we’re gonna be revealing this thing. And honestly, I can tell you because I, like, we have already filmed, so it’s gonna be like post produced, but it’s such a great format. Every five minutes there is really people, you know, fighting especially those who are, you know, fighting for the next to the last position. They’re getting to, to get their answers, trying to guess at least something. So there’re really every five minutes there is an ex like in addition to all the action that’s happening there, there is some extra action. And you have some, you know, people being eliminated you know , the hunger game style <laugh>, so to say, well, maybe not that cruel, but still. And it’s, it’s, it’s really fun. It’s interesting. You, you really, you could have a brilliant analyst or brilliant Excel mind who’s going for a let’s say multi-level solution, like a universal solution that solves only five levels simultaneously. But that person will have zero points after five minutes and will be eliminated. So we won’t be able to solve everything. So, and there are lots of different tactical things, tactical solutions tactical choices. Like, do I go for a bonus? Do I go for a level? Do I go for maybe some hard level or less hard level? So really lots of you are gonna love that format.
Paul Barnhurst:
Yeah, it sounds like it will be a, a great event. So it’s exciting to see that. And just speaking to the competition in general, one more question around that. You know, I’ve heard you mention and talk about, you see it on the website that it’s first and foremost a learning opportunity.
Andrew Grigolyunovich:
It is. Why
Paul Barnhurst:
Is that, and what do you hope people gain from it?
Andrew Grigolyunovich:
Well, my, my, like our, our slogan since the very beginning wasLearn, Train, Compete, and basically the competition. That’s just the final part. That’s when you are a guru or a master when you, you know, really know all the ins and outs in Excel, and I bet nobody knows all of them, right? So you <laugh> you might start competing. You, you might start to, you know get some tough spots and so on. But for most of the people, that’s a great way to learn because you have two things. First of all, it’s fun. You basically have a challenge that’s at, at a specific time. You’re getting specific points. You kind of see how you are doing. And on the other hand, you can also compare yourself how you are doing against the crowd. One time that might be humiliating, but if you work a little bit more, like several stages, you will see that initially you were ranked maybe like within the bottom half, then you’re improving somewhat, then you’re probably giving better.
And at one point you’re starting to get into the top 50 or top 20 or maybe top 10 layers, right? So you can see, you can track your performance, you can track your progress in a fun way. So, and the challenges that we post, basically like we really do lots of useful challenges that will grow your Excel skills, your financial modeling skills on other platforms that are, you know, purely training platforms, you will get something similar, maybe, maybe a little bit more boring. And for a you know, the big, big price for a big ticket, right? For a high price here, like $25 per stage, and you get three cases to solve. You train yourself in various ways. This is really a fun an effective way to train that. That’s how we treat that.
Paul Barnhurst:
Thank you, Andrew. I, I appreciate that, and I do, I will agree. It’s a fun way having just done it. And we’ll get into that here in a few minutes. Got a couple questions for you, aj. The first is you worked as a business planning analyst for a good part of your career before starting your own business. What is that? And then from your perspective, how is that different from a financial planning analyst? What’s the difference?
Ajay Patel:
That’s a, that’s a good question. So in my role in business planning and optimization analyst, so I was in the oil industry. And so the thing about oil industry, there’s a lot of velocity in terms of spend mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. So my refinery we spent, you know, anywhere between 70 and a hundred million dollars every three days. And in order to spend that money, you get, you purchase a barrel of oil, and if you’re off by a dollar and where you think you should have bought it, it can mean losing millions or making millions, right? So it’s very sensitive. And so while, as you know, typical financial planning is a little bit more long-term, these, this particular role was literally like the next three, four days, the next three, four days, the next three, four days, the next three, four days. And then my view was generally about 90 to 180 days, because when I bought a barrel of crude oil, it could take about 90 days to get to my refinery, anywhere between 30 and 90 days.
And so I had to, I had to play this medium outlook along with like, the immediate needs of the refinery. And the complexity is huge, right? So you’re, when you talk about oil, I don’t wanna get too into it, but essentially, you know, any barrel of oil has thousands of properties, and you have to match them against thousands of properties within your refining operation. You have to figure out exactly what combination of all of it will actually result in, in profitability for the company. And, and just because you pay less for oil doesn’t mean you make more money. You could pay less for oil and lose millions, and you could pay more for oil and end up making money. So that’s the, the fundamental difference is, is the velocity at which we had to do the analysis. We were constant 24 7. There were days where I’d be sitting on the beach and I’d get a phone call, Hey, something changed. We need an analysis done. And I had viewed the report that morning, I grabbed the stick, and I’m doing math in the sand and I’m making phone calls. So <laugh>, I didn’t always have my Excel spreadsheets everywhere I went, but you learn to make do.
Paul Barnhurst:
Got it. So it sounds like for you there was that velocity and it was very focused on one area. Yeah. In the sense of the oil I get, there were lots of variables around that. There was a lot of complexity, but it was focused where often, you know, FP&A, you’re looking at the whole business and you’re taking much more of that long-term view, but I’m sure there’s a lot of similarities. Planning is planning at the end of the day. Right,
Ajay Patel:
Right.
Paul Barnhurst:
Okay. That, that makes sense. So next question, you had the opportunity this week, as did I, to compete in FMWC. You did your first case ever. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, tell us about it. What was it like?
Ajay Patel:
So it’s, it’s interesting you know, going into it, I, I just had no idea what to expect. You just don’t know what to expect. And I was, I was like, well, if I can just not get a zero, that’s my goal. <Laugh>. If I can successfully answer anything in here, I would, I would like it. And, and Andrew, I have to tell you, you, you said earlier that this was about learning and having fun. And the, the cases that I got, you can actually really sink your teeth into ’em and have fun with it. And I think that aspect of it actually made me feel comfortable. And I didn’t think like I was just gonna get handed these overly complex questions that were gonna result in me being like, I can’t do this. In fact, the, the, the way that the questions were presented, it was like, you know, basic knowledge and then you kind of build out and build out and build out, and you’re able to start working towards more complex solutions.
Now I started realizing that maybe I was a little too late in the game, I spent a little bit more, too much time on some stuff. But overall, I have to tell you, it was a good experience. I do plan on going back into the files. I do plan on trying to see how I could do things better, because ultimately it was an opportunity to practice and learn. And, and I, I thought it was like, I actually really enjoyed the experience. I, I just have to say it was a positive for me, and I wanna do it again. And I wanna try, I wanna see how far I can actually go thinking from the mindset of like, like being a competitor. You know, when I do an Excel spreadsheet, I can take my time. I can sit back, relax. This is no, sit back and relax, you gotta go. But it’s, nonetheless, it was, it was fun. It was fun. That’s
Paul Barnhurst:
So glad to hear. I love that actor. I’m glad you really enjoyed it.
Andrew Grigolyunovich:
Yes. Sorry Paul, I just wanted to, to react here. I’m so glad to hear, to hear Ajay’s opinion here. It’s, it’s, it, it, it’s so good. Be because we’re really working so that you guys have this opportunity and this, the, the, these types of emotions that you can learn. You can improve skills. You can feel good and you can, you can get some fun out of a seemingly boring thing because it’s, it’s really lots of, lots of fun there. <Laugh>
Paul Barnhurst:
Good. I like that. I’ll share a little bit of my experience. ’cause I got to do two this last week. It was my first time. So I did the, you know, financial modeling World cup with you, the finance case. And just to set the stage a little bit, how it worked is we had three different cases. There’s kind of a warmup where you’re doing some questions around interest and very basic, and then a more complex model where you have like 17 different questions that you’re, you know, progressively trying to solve more and more about it. And then you had a third one that was a little more challenging. And so there’s basics, the modeling stuff you need to think about, you know, what formula you’re gonna use, and the, the longer you get into it, the more challenging it is. And so it was definitely, I found it was a good experience.
But similar to you, Ajay, I found myself, there’s times where something would just drive me crazy. And so I’d format it and I’m like, why am I wasting time formatting this? This is a competition. Like this is gonna take me 10 seconds. But it was just bothering me because I’m so used to, I can do that whenever I want, when I’m taking my time on something and it’s not a, you know, I’m not in a rush. And so little things like that of just realizing how different the environment is, you know, for a case versus, you know, general work that I’m doing. And so like, you, it was a good experience. And then, you know, do doing the Excel eSports was just a whole different one, especially being, you know, streamed live. And, you know, I got, I got the bonus question and it went downhill from there.
It was kind of how it worked for me. My brain just kind of froze up. And right as I finished the case, there was one section, you’ll kinda laugh. I was looking at it and thinking about it, and I realized, I’m like, I did that all wrong. Why did I even think those were the, like, I misunderstood it in my head, the case, and so I answered them wrong. And I came back later and looked at it and go, why did I think that? You know, how you do sometimes. And I think it was just the pressure of not being in that type of environment. But it was fun. I learned a lot. And, you know, it was, I’m excited to go back and kind of dig through the cases, like you said. So, you know, hats off to you, Andrew, on that. I know you created the case for this round. So maybe talk to us a little bit about the case and what that’s like, creating one and your thinking that goes into that.
Andrew Grigolyunovich:
Yeah, <laugh>. Yeah. Well, as for case creation, it’s it’s important that like the main challenge here is not to, or complicated. And at the same time, to make it interesting enough for, for the strongest players. So this one actually turned out to be perfect in a way that there was one person who made a maximum. So that was Andrew Guy, the current world champion. He scored all the five levels and all the bonus points within actually he saved like four minutes or something. And the third place at the same time, which is like, you know, only like so, so, so like the first place was the maximum a thousand to hundred 50 points. The third place was scoring 700 something. So basically that was a 500 points drop. So still it was okay for the, for the top layers and was challenging enough for most of the people.
And those probably the the average results there were probably a little bit around 500 points, maybe, maybe less, 400 or something. So and the case itself, that was about the table football, but not the fusball all that, you know, like with all these you know players moving around, but rather the retro type that I had actually in my, in my childhood with the players being let’s say stick to the specific places on the, on the board and and having the ball roll towards them. And when I was like I think somebody gifted it to me when I was like six or seven or eight, and I was a fan of football. So basically what I did, I I was just really playing the the whole national championship between 16 teams back there.
And imagine the number of matches, like every team had to play like 15 games, one leg and 15 games, another leg. So towards the end I was playing like, okay, one nil this time, this come, this team wins. Then okay, one nil, the other team wins. It’s, it was so boring, but I really wanted to finish this championship. Now with Excel, I could have modeled like how they played actually, and just play on with some <laugh> some of these matches. So and that was something that like, how can you model playing, playing some something that’s interesting to, to play something that’s could be interesting to, to watch on the screen. We’re really trying to make these cases look good on the screen. So they should be visually attractive card games roulettes you know, biathlon, those types of things, they really look good on the screen.
And this is something I really want to bring, not just some numbers, but well formatted things like football field, draw in Excel with all the fans outside that look, you know, better than just numbers with no formatting, right? So this, this is something that these are the ideas that come, come, come kind of, we need to balance through creating these cases. And of course it’s, it’s, it’s not only me, basically, it’s lots of other people who do cases. We actually have very responsive players, so there are people who submit their cases this year. So that was road to Las Vegas seven stop number seven. That was the first time my case was played this year. Before that there were people like Peter Char, Harry Seider Patrick Chiang, who have submitted their cases. And we were, you know, thanks to them. We have, you know, had very good excitement there in the previous rounds. Yeah. So
Paul Barnhurst:
Thank you. No, I appreciate that background. And just so everybody knows it’s listening, there’s the, this was the Excel eSports case that I had the opportunity to be streamed live. The one that Ajay and I did Monday was the Financial modeling World Cup. So there’s, you know, there are different cases, and the eSports one, like you said, was a soccer one where you had to figure out positions and pull things apart to come up with, okay, if this happens, where does the ball go? If that happens, where does the ball go? And you’re trying to automate those formulas, and each step it’s getting harder and harder. And so it was, it was visually appealing. You could see the stadium, you could see the soccer field, you could see the people, and a lot of different ways to approach the case. So it was definitely for me, the, it’s much more of a logic game, is kind of how I think about it with the eSports versus kind of FFMWC, which has its logic, but it’s a little more of that kind of modeling and it just builds on each other and is challenging the way you have to think and solve things, which they both do, but just different, different approaches to each of,
Andrew Grigolyunovich:
Actually, I was surprised that Ajay, with his engineering background, selected to go for the financial modeling World Cup, because for us, we actually positioned Excel eSports as something that’s the kind of less finance related. So basically for Excel eSports, we try to make it open to engineers, mathematicians statisticians, whoever work works in Excel, whoever is strong in Excel, and who doesn’t want, who doesn’t need to have the, you know, specific financial knowledge. So maybe you try that next time he can thank,
Paul Barnhurst:
He can thank me for that being an FP&A Today podcast. Said, Hey, let’s sign up for this. We both signed up for that one. So Ajay, next time we’ll have you try the eSports.
Ajay Patel:
Yeah, my, I have to tell you, listening to you talk about the eSports, I’m kind of like, I feel like that might’ve been really a lot of fun to give that a shot. So, Andrew, don’t worry. That’s now on my radar, <laugh>
Paul Barnhurst:
<Laugh>, and, and I’ll show you, I picked up some of their cases so you and I can chat and I can show you what some of those look like, so you can kind of see what it’s like.
Ajay Patel:
Yeah, let’s do it. Let’s do it.
Andrew Grigolyunovich:
Yeah, I, I just wanted to mention that’s another specifics of th Excel is that we want to make this spectator friendly sport. So we stream that, we cheer the players, we praise the top skills, the top the top players, but also all the players who, who, who take part, right? So, and the best part of that is that the finals of the Microsoft Excel World Championship will be in Las Vegas, in in eSports arena. So it’s gonna be a huge event this later this year. So, and that’s in addition to being on ESPN.
Paul Barnhurst:
No, I, I’m really excited. I know Andrew and I have been chatting, and I’m gonna go down to Vegas. We’re gonna do an episode where we interview the finalists, and I’m hoping, I think it’s gonna work to go the weekend before and do the college championship and interview the finalist there in Tucson. So I’m looking forward to learning a few new things as I watch these people work and realize how much I can improve my Excel game, <laugh>, right? I mean, that’s one of the things I’ve definitely learned. So I think I know the answer to this question, Ajay, but we’re gonna ask it anyway, moment of truth, you gonna compete again?
Ajay Patel:
Yeah. Yeah, I think, I think that’s definitely on the on the agenda, like I said, not just F M W C, I think that was one thing, but now this Excel eSport vertical sounds like it’s a lot of fun. And I, I’ve been seeing videos and you know, Oz is out there with the great hair and he’s talking about the road to Las Vegas, and now I, I kind of see that there was two different things, and I’m, I’m kind of all about it. And, and the competitive juices are going from those, all those years I spent studying martial arts. Now, I might be pouring that energy into this but that will require me to start doing a little bit of practice and training. And Paul, you offered it up. Let’s do it.
Paul Barnhurst:
Next question is, what would you say to someone who’s thinking of competing?
Ajay Patel:
Just jump in. Jump in. Just do it. Right? If you’re, if you’re on the, if you’re kinda on the proverbial fence, there’s no reason to be on the fence. Just, just do it because you’ve got nothing to lose. It’s, you know, as Andrew mentioned, they make it completely accessible in terms of affordability, jump in, you know, I went in with these crazy expectations of impossibility, and I walked out with, wait a minute. I, I guess I know some stuff, and it, I, I feel better because of it. And I just think if you’re on the fence, do it. The answer’s yes,
Paul Barnhurst:
I love that. I like what so we had Diarmud Early was our podcast we released last week, and he made a comment that really stuck out to me. He said, I asked him a question of what winning the World Championship has done for him. And he said, I, I’ve been more rewarded by becoming better at Excel than becoming better known, like, what’s benefited me more? And he said, learning Excel better has helped me more in my career than being better known. And I thought that was really interesting, which speaks to the learning opportunity, right? Because everybody dreams of in certain areas wanting to win. But I like how he said, you know, really, I learned more from upping my Excel game and it benefits me more in my career than, hey, having world championship on my resume. And I thought that was really interesting.
Ajay Patel:
I mean, that makes sense when you think about how life is, it’s always about learning, right? And the only way that you’re gonna up your game, I mean, Paul, let’s be honest, the reason why we jumped into this was because your post was about, Hey, I think I’m gonna do this. This is a great way to go about learning. And that, and then you, you kind of got me into it because I said, yeah, this is the best way to learn is sometimes sign up for a competition, and then all of a sudden it’s like, well, I need to perform <laugh>. And it gets you into, into a place where it’s like, all right, let me go down the things and learn about the things I really was resistant to because it wasn’t relevant to me, and now you’re making it relevant. So I think there’s a lot of wisdom in that statement.
Yeah. That, that, that was mentioned. It’s, it’s learning more and, and that growth part of it. Yeah, I can assure you of this, and I’m a big football fan. You look at any pro football foot player that’s successful, it’s because all they do is continuously learn. You don’t stop learning. The guys who stop learning, they’re the ones that ultimately drop out. So they’ll always be learning, having competitions like this. Actually, Andrew, honestly, this competition is doing a service to, to, to people in the Excel world and data in general, because what you’re doing is, is you’re upping its game every time, and it, you’re finding new ways to do things and new ways for people to think about things. It’s not just about the competition. You are doing a, this is, there’s actually a broader aspect to this, which is actually seeing people all up their game, you know, and now seeing an evolution in that, in this vertical.
Andrew Grigolyunovich:
Yeah, the word competition here might be misleading to some people who are maybe not very willing to compete, but rather to learn, I think like, it, it belongs there because this is what, what’s what what is there for the, for the top guns, but the industry, most of the players, most of the participants, anyone who signs up gets the training part, gets the learning thing and upgrades his or her skill and, and the level of Excel gain.
Paul Barnhurst:
So what advice do you give to people when they ask you about, they say, Hey, I’m thinking of competing Andrew, what do you typically tell ’em?
Andrew Grigolyunovich:
Hmm, jump in <laugh>.
Ajay Patel:
Good advice. I like that.
Andrew Grigolyunovich:
Yeah, honestly, we, we, we just say that that’s it’s, it’s really, as Ajay formulated it perfectly, there is nothing to lose. You only gain training. You only gain skill. And worst case, even if you get zero points, you can always opt in for like showing your ID number instead of your name. You won’t, nobody’s even gonna know that you are getting better. I
Ajay Patel:
Wish I
Paul Barnhurst:
That option. I shoulda did that when they streamed me.
Ajay Patel:
Shouldn’t have done that.
Paul Barnhurst:
<Laugh>
Ajay Patel:
Done that. Oh, well,
Paul Barnhurst:
I, I knew you could, but I was like, ah, people could see my score. I have no problem with it. But there was one thing I was gonna say that you mentioned there. I like, well, you gave about the learning and I, I’m gonna go back to an interview on Financial Modeler’s Corner, so it’s other, a different podcast. But when I talked to Diarmud, he made the comment that I really liked. He said that so many people come to me and say, I’m gonna try it, but I need to train first. He goes, well, and what other thing do you train first? He goes, you’re gonna learn by doing it. And so he is like, just jump in and do it, and you’ll get better. That’s your training is doing it. Don’t think you have to master everything, which you never will, and then you’ll compete, like just jump in and start learning and have fun, right? <Affirmative>, it’s like you look at little kids, you watch three-year-olds on the soccer field, right? It’s just a, it’s a comedy of errors and they don’t know what they’re doing, but they’re just out there learning and having fun, and then they figure it out. And the first time you do it for a competition in Excel for the vast majority of us, is probably not gonna go very well, you know? And over time, you get better’s how it works.
Ajay Patel:
You, you know what’s interesting, Paul, is, is it’s almost like when, when folks say, I have to prepare, I have to do this, I can’t because I have to. It there, it’s an internal excuse, right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, like, like, I even think I pushed back on you and I was like, listen, I’m gonna be in Florida the week before this, I don’t know. And you’re like, just do it. And I’m like, all right, I’m doing it. That’s it, <laugh>, I’m, I’m making excuses. Well, I heard myself making the excuse. So yeah, you just jump in and do it, and whatever happens, it’s like, it’s not gonna be the end of the world. You’re gonna get experience. And then the next time, maybe you could say, okay, I’m gonna, I’m going to prepare. But you know what to expect. Don’t, don’t stop yourself before it starts. Go. Yep. Right? That’s the speed of the world is go, it’s the speed of life. It’s the speed of everything is go, so you gotta go.
Paul Barnhurst:
It’s how you learn. I mean, the only way we learn and improve ourselves is by challenging ourselves. And there’s plenty of different ways to do it. You know, you don’t have to compete in this. You can be great in Excel and FP&A and have never done it, but if you enjoy the enjoy that type of thing, you wanna challenge yourself. It’s a great, it’s a great way to do it. I mean, I, like I said, I’ll definitely do it again. So we’re coming up near the end of our time. I think this has been a fun conversation. I get to talk Excel, which is always fun. I get to be a nerd. So I like that, you know? And so last two questions, and we’ll do this. First we’ll ask you, Andrew, this question, and then we’ll ask you, Ajay. So if you could give one piece of advice to help people become better in Excel, what would be your advice, Andrew,
Andrew Grigolyunovich:
In addition to what we were just talking about <laugh> for the
Paul Barnhurst:
Whole last, I figured that was gonna be one of, yes. In addition,
Andrew Grigolyunovich:
In addition watch the videos try to look how the best players or how the best specialists work you’ll probably notice some patterns. You will notice how they treat things. And that’s a good way to, to learn to spot other ways, to solve problems that you probably might not be even thinking that these could exist. So watch how the pros work.
Paul Barnhurst:
I’ve learned a ton from watching. I used to, and I probably should admit this, I’ll show how much of a nerd I am, but when I was exercising, I used to watch Excel is fun, Mike Girvin videos, and I remember one day watching one and I’m like, oh, that’s the solution I need at work. And it saved me hours from a process we had. And I was like, I’m watching the video at work and putting it in place. I’m like, I’m sure glad I did that. And so I totally agree. You can learn a lot from others. Aj what’s your advice on that one? To get better at Excel?
Ajay Patel:
You know, I think you took the words right outta my mouth and you brought Mike Girvin and Excel is fun. And, and I think where you really see it, and this is how the world has changed, right? When we first started back when I was in college, I mean, it was like you had to get a book, you had to go here, you had to find the right, and, and nowadays, and I actually have a post coming up about this, is, is what you can actually do is you could go on the on, on social media, you can find folks who are consistently posting you know, different things that you could do inside of Excel, and you can learn things one day at a time. And I think by breaking it down to that and getting to the most simple basic things, if you’re a novice with Excel, the first time I ever opened up Excel, it was just all these cells, a lot of white space, a lot of buttons.
I didn’t know what they did. I closed it down. I never wanted to look at it again. But now, if you could take away that kind of, like, that initial fear of what is this? And you can start learning little bits at a time and going down to the most basic elements of it, I think you can really start building a solid foundation. And the best way to do that is, is by following these great creators that are on LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, and just learning. I mean, hey, I’ll raise my hand Leila Gharani , how many times I went to her videos to learn something in my life? And now to think that I’m even in a sphere with her is kind of crazy, right? So, you know, this is the new way of the world. Social media can be a great source for education. Excel is a wonderful, wonderful topic to learn. And I think that’s, that’s really where you can gain a lot is, is start simple and you get your simple from those creators.
Paul Barnhurst:
So last question, and we’ll start with you here, Andrew. If someone wants to get ahold of you, what would be the best way to do that? If they maybe wanna reach out or have a question for you
Andrew Grigolyunovich:
Just drop me a line on LinkedIn or send me an email. That’s, that’s the best way to, to get in touch.
Paul Barnhurst:
Perfect. And Ajay, how about yourself?
Ajay Patel:
Yeah, so I, you can find me at LinkedIn. My, my handle on there is the Excel ninja. You can also find me if you go to www dot Learn Excel live right now, that takes you straight to my sub stack where you can sign up for the Excel dojo. There’s thousands of people signed up for it, getting those weekly lessons. Check it out. It’s free. It comes with sample databases so that you’re actually able to not only read the newsletter, but you can also apply what you’ve learned. So that’s a great resource and you can follow me on LinkedIn as well. And if you know Paul, just click through Paul and you’ll, you’ll, you’ll find my profile. AJ Patel, the XL Ninja.
Paul Barnhurst:
Thanks Ajay. Thanks Andrew. I really appreciate you guys joining me today. I’ve enjoyed the conversation, so it’s been a lot of fun. Thanks for being on the show, guys. Appreciate it.
Ajay Patel:
Love being here. Thank you so much for doing this, Paul. Andrew, thank you so much for creating these wonderful competitions where we get to learn and grow with excel.
Andrew Grigolyunovich:
Thank you both guys, for joining the last stage of the financial modeling World Cup. That was great to having you both jumping in with no preparation and liking that. And thank you. It was a great it, it was my, my pleasure being here on the on the show today. Thank you so much, Paul.