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3 hours ago
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When I was looking for new startup ideas, I came across a software marketplace that I never heard of before: the Google Workspace Marketplace. I then did some research into it; one year later, I’ve decided to share my knowledge via a multi-part blog series.
Brief intro
Let’s start with some short explanations. You’re obviously familiar with the Google productivity tools - Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and many more. Well, it turns out that you can install extensions (called apps) on those tools!
Example of a Google Sheets app - I built this bad boy!
And, where do you find these apps? On the Google Workspace Marketplace.
The marketplace works in a similar way to Shopify’s - there’s a directory where you can search for these apps. Each listing has reviews, number of installs, a label indicating whether it’s free or not (often misleading). The usual stuff.
Addressable market
These apps tend to be popular with smaller businesses, who use them as low-cost, flexible alternatives to enterprise software suites.
Google Sheets app that replaces email automation services like Mailchimp
What you lose in terms of budget sizes, you gain in volume. Google reported 5 billion Workspace app installs back in 2021. They haven’t published user stats since then, but the 2025 figure is obviously going to be much larger. It’s a huge market!
Methodology
Ok, so now that we now this is a market worth diving into, let’s come up with a way to analyse what startup opportunities there are. My plan is to gather all the apps into a spreadsheet, filter out the unsuitable ones, and then analyze those that seem ripe for competition.
I did think about an alternative method - checking out the most popular YouTube videos on a Google service, and their comments. Problem is, I think there’s too much noise since you’ll have a ton content for people who are never open to paying for an app.
YouTube results for “how to” + “Google Sheets” - maybe Gantt charts are an opportunity?
Data collection
I wrote a script that tries to fetch all the listings on the marketplace. It doesn’t have 100% coverage, but I think it’s good enough. It was pretty straightforward; Google doesn’t put up barriers to scraping.
After about 20 minutes, lo and behold - a Google Sheet with 5,300 apps that my little script picked up.
Next steps
Going through 5,300 apps? Yeah, that’s a bit much for one person! So, for my next blog post, I’m gonna shrink that down to something a bit more bite-sized. Stay tuned!
I started this blog because I wanted to have conversations on topics that I find interesting. So, feel welcome to reach out to me, even if to challenge my perspective. I'm on LinkedIn; please add a message when you connect. Alternatively, use this contact form.
