STARTSWITH

Returns TRUE if text starts with a certain value, otherwise FALSE

Syntax:

STARTSWITH(text, value)

STARTSWITH checks value against text looking at the start of text. It returns TRUE if text starts with value, otherwise returns FALSE.

Example:

STARTSWITH("Hello", "H")

returns TRUE

STARTSWITH("Hello", "A")

returns FALSE

Text:

Value:

Result:

TRUE

Application:

Categorizing Customer Feedback

Imagine you have a spreadsheet containing customer feedback from a recent survey. You want to quickly categorize the feedback based on keywords to understand the main themes. The STARTSWITH function is perfect for this.

The Goal: Automatically flag all feedback that begins with the word "Problem" as a "Service Issue" and all feedback that begins with "Suggestion" as a "Feature Request."

Table:

	Feedback	Category
	A	B
1	Problem: My order was late.	Service Issue
2	The app is great.	Other
3	Suggestion: A dark mode would be nice.	Feature Request
4	Problem with the checkout process.	Service Issue
5	Suggestion for a new feature.	Feature Request

Explanation of the Formula:

STARTSWITH(A1, "Problem"): This is the core of the function. It checks if the text in cell A1 ("Problem: My order was late.") begins with the text "Problem". This will return TRUE.
IF(TRUE, "Service Issue", ...): Since the STARTSWITH function returns TRUE, the IF function will assign the value "Service Issue" to cell B1.
The second IF statement: This is a nested IF to handle the "Suggestion" case. If the first STARTSWITH had returned FALSE, the formula would then check if the text starts with "Suggestion".
"Other": This is the value to return if neither of the STARTSWITH conditions is met (like in row 2).