How to Use Excel (Beginner Tutorial)

By Kevin Stratvert

Categories: Tools, AI, Product

Summary

This beginner Excel tutorial teaches practical data organization through a real example: Kevin builds a cookie sales tracker, then uses tables, conditional formatting, and formulas to transform raw numbers into actionable insights—demonstrating why Excel proficiency remains essential for founders analyzing business metrics.

Key Takeaways

1. Convert raw data into formatted tables using CTRL+T to unlock powerful features like auto-filtering, total rows, and conditional formatting that instantly reveal trends.
2. Use conditional formatting with color scales to visualize performance patterns—sales data instantly showed Q4 holiday seasonality, making trends visible without calculations.
3. Build simple SUM formulas by typing = and clicking cells to aggregate specific data ranges, enabling quick business metric calculations like quarterly revenue totals.
4. Insert recommended charts from the Insert tab to visualize data trends over time—line charts make it easier to spot patterns than interpreting raw tables.
5. Master formatting basics (thousands separators, decimal removal, column auto-fit) to improve readability and communicate data professionally to stakeholders.

Topics

• Excel Tables and Data Formatting
• Conditional Formatting for Data Visualization
• SUM Formulas and Cell References
• Business Metrics Dashboards
• Data Trend Analysis

Transcript Excerpt

Does your resume say, "You know Excel," but you've never actually used it? Let's fix that. Hi, I'm Kevin, and in this video, we'll learn Excel from scratch, step-by-step. Let's dive in. Here I am in Excel, and this right here is called a worksheet. And each of these boxes is a cell. That's where you enter your data. Across the top, you have columns labeled with letters. And right here down the side, you have rows labeled with numbers. When you combine the two of these, that gives you a cell addr...