What a difference a day makes. Or in this case, four months?

We launched eXpresso in August. With few exceptions, the business, investor, and user worlds thought eXpresso had big-time winning potential. Reviewers and technical writers heaped high praise on the eXpresso concept, but invariably the articles included terms like ?fledgling startup? and ?lean organization?. They were right. We were fledgling, we were a startup, and relative to other more well-financed entrants hoping to become successes in the Web 2.0 world, we are working with shoestring budgets and double-duty staff.

Fast forward to late December. PC World Magazine assesses thousands of products and names us ? eXpresso ? one of the 25 Most Innovative Products for 2008. And the company we?re keeping? Apple (for iPhone), Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and twenty others, most of whom are high tech giants and household names. (see the article) How great is that! You?ll excuse us, please, if we?re allowing ourselves just a moment of self-congratulations and enjoying one more reason to toast in the New Year this week.

We?re not naive enough to think an award, no matter how prestigious the recognition, or how distinguished the fellow winners, will pay the bills and send eXpresso to the supreme level we want it to reach. But eXpresso is breaking new ground ? there are no benchmarks to compare our progress because there?s never been another eXpresso. For now, it?s great to have outside experts confirm that we?re on the right track ? and the fast track.

So we?ll pull ourselves down from our brush-with-celebrity high and use the PC World karma to resume the less glamorous work of perfecting code and evangelizing the merits of the first online business community for Excel. In this exciting time, eXpresso is in a place where any day can make the pivotal difference. I can?t wait to see what tomorrow brings.

Tags: onlinespreadsheets, spreadsheets, Excel, business, communities, eXpresso, Corp, Web2.0, SaaS, awards, PCWorld, innovative, products