How Kat Norton Turned Excel Into a $2M Business

Spreadsheets might make most people yawn, but for Kat Norton—better known online as Miss Excel—they sparked an empire.

She didn’t write new code. She didn’t build a fancy app. She didn’t go viral by chasing controversy. What she did do was take a skill most people dread—using Microsoft Excel—and turn it into an entertaining, relatable, and wildly profitable business.

Let’s break it down.

The Origin Story

Back in 2020, Kat was working in consulting, traveling across the U.S. teaching Excel workshops for corporate clients. She enjoyed teaching, loved to dance, and had a natural talent for making complex tools simple and fun.

Then the pandemic hit.

Locked down and dissatisfied with her job, Kat started thinking bigger. A friend floated the idea: “Why not share your Excel tips on TikTok?” That simple suggestion planted a seed.

Within 48 hours, she filmed her first 14-second video.

Her secret weapon? Personality. Instead of dry, step-by-step tutorials, Kat infused her videos with upbeat music, dancing, and her signature high energy. She made Excel entertaining—something most people didn’t think was possible.

By her fourth post, she’d hit 100,000 views. By the sixth, a tech company CEO reached out for training. Within weeks, Miss Excel was going viral.

From Viral Videos to Real Revenue

Five months after her TikTok debut, Kat created her first online course—and in a single launch, she made more money than her corporate paycheck. Over the next year and a half, she launched 10 more courses.

At one point, she raked in $100,000 in a single day from course sales.

She kept momentum going with free webinars, an engaging newsletter, and features in major media outlets like CNBC, Business Insider, and The Verge. Her follower count exploded—950K on Instagram, 939K on TikTok—and her business soared.

By 2023, Miss Excel had hit $2 million in annual revenue.

The Business Model: Built on Simplicity

Kat didn’t wait for things to be perfect. She launched early, iterated fast, and kept her operations lean. For the first 18 months, she ran the entire business solo—creating courses, editing videos, handling marketing, and responding to customer feedback.

She chose Thinkific to host her content because it was easy to use, allowing her to build and launch new courses in under a week.

Today, her business runs on multiple streams of income, all centered around Excel:

- Self-paced courses on formulas, pivot tables, dashboards, and more.  

- Live masterclasses tackling specific Excel problems.  

- Corporate workshops that boost productivity for teams.  

- Digital products like templates, cheat sheets, and planners.  

- Group coaching programs for professionals.  

- High-end 1-on-1 coaching (VIP intensives).  

- Brand partnerships with software and tech companies.  

- Corporate licensing so entire teams can access her training.

Why It Works

Kat saw what most people missed: Excel isn’t “boring”—it’s valuable. And in a world obsessed with novelty, she proved that mastering something simple and delivering it in a fresh way can create massive impact.

The key? She didn’t overcomplicate. She didn’t wait until everything was perfect. She picked one thing, went all-in, and built around it.

What’s Your “Excel”?

The real takeaway here isn’t just about Kat or Excel. It’s about what you already know.

You might be sitting on a skill that feels ordinary to you—but it could be life-changing to someone else.

You don’t need to chase trends or reinvent the wheel. Sometimes, the path to a million-dollar business is right under your nose.

So ask yourself:  

What skill do you take for granted, that someone else would gladly pay to learn?

Because when you package what you know in a way that resonates?  

That’s when things really start to click.