Colorado

Sodapup

Location: Boulder, Colorado
Website: https://sodapup.com/
90+% time savings on product descriptions using Gemini

After serving in the U.S. Coast Guard, Adam Baker earned an MBA and spent years as a successful product manager for leading athletic brands. Working with entrepreneurs inspired him “to see if I had the right stuff to create something from nothing,” he recalls. So in 2012 he launched Sodapup, which produces durable, U.S.-made dog enrichment toys, slow feeder bowls, and more. Whimsical chew toys like pink unicorn horns and lick mats with regional designs like lighthouses or mountains help Sodapup stand out. “Our secret sauce is creating an emotional connection, delighting customers in ways they didn’t expect,” Adam says. Sodapup now sells nationally and in 47 other countries through retailers and their own website. As they grow, they give back: Sodapup donates toys to military and police dogs, as well as animal shelters.

Adam applies a fashion-like cadence at Sodapup, with themed collections and frequent new designs; currently about 185 SKUs. With so many press releases and product descriptions to write, he turns to Gemini to save time and keep ideas fresh. “I use it to develop unique and differentiated content for each product,” he says. “And I can do it 90 to 95% faster.” Adam shares that he recently used Nano Banana to design a patriotic-themed collection for a short-notice pitch: “Google AI enabled me to quickly conceptualize and presell products before actually making them.” Google Vids helps him easily create clips for social media, like a popular unicorn-themed series. “They look big-budget when in fact they’re produced at very low cost,” he notes. Adam hosts these clips on YouTube, along with product videos and episodes of Sodapup’s Enrichment Lab podcast. “I can reach a global audience,” he says. “Google tools are so powerful to a small business because they level the playing field. I’m competing against larger businesses with my mind, not my purse.”

Pagedip

Location: Boulder, Colorado
Website: https://pagedip.com/
Brought new product to market within 2 quarters

Sherisse Hawkins, founder and CEO of Pagedip, believes that any piece of content should “impart the message and delight the reader at the same time.” An engineer who considers her field a creative discipline, she started the company in 2015 to make information more engaging and useful. “Pagedips” are interactive web-based documents, Sherisse explains: “They’re a kind of micro page with a lot of cool functionality.” For instance, an unwieldy physical binder of post-surgery instructions can be turned into a pagedip, shareable with all caregivers, where doctors can add videos and updates. The Pagedip team uses Google Workspace tools, like Docs and Calendar, to collaborate with clients and each other, and Gemini to research, summarize information, and hone communications. They’ve used Google Cloud for a decade, which Sherisse appreciates for transparency, ease of use, and security.

Pagedip underwent a recent renaissance, building on Vertex AI and other Google AI infrastructure to scale their products and add new features and functionality. Now they can better serve their dual stream of clients: nonprofits, who can easily use pagedips to customize messaging to boost donations, and enterprise customers like venture capital firms, who use Pagedip’s AI products to screen funding applicants for specific criteria and speed up the selection process. In 2024, being part of Google for Startups inspired this renaissance. “We were able to stand this product up in record time with the support of Google mentors, resources, and technology,” Sherisse says. Whether it’s helping a nonprofit fundraise for a new building or helping enterprise clients become more efficient, Pagedip is finding AI-powered solutions to the age-old question of how to engage users and create a positive experience. “If you do it in a way that’s accessible and compelling, you can make a difference,” Sherisse says.

CarGari

Location: Denver, Colorado
Website: https://www.cargari.com/
38% MoM growth attributed to Google Ads

Rafael Small loves technology and he loves cars. So when his frustration with business trip car rentals reached a tipping point in 2019, he founded CarGari, a peer-to-peer car rental platform. “It was the best way for me to disrupt the status quo, and create a better process for renting vehicles,” he explains. CarGari–”gari” means “car” in Swahili–matches private Presenters (car owners interested in renting their personal cars via the platform) with Receivers (anyone interested in a cost-effective car rental). CarGari handles the vetting, insurance, and payments. Renters save money and get fast, convenient service, while owners earn income from cars that might otherwise sit idle. “I work with a lot of first-time minority entrepreneurs who put a vehicle on the platform to create an additional revenue stream. I like being able to provide that opportunity because it’s a part of giving back,” Rafael says.

CarGari will soon be expanding from the Denver metro area into Kansas City, Phoenix, and Chicago. Rafael uses AI-powered Performance Max campaigns to get the word out. “Google Ads are integral to CarGari for awareness of my services and my brand,” he says. With Google Analytics 4, Rafael can check website visit data and see which of his keywords and bidding strategies are working: “The dashboard is user-friendly and the data is accessible. Understanding how and where traffic is entering the platform, I can adjust my strategy.” Up next? Rafael hopes to partner with domestic violence shelters to provide cars to those in need. And he’s planning to scale to 18 more cities across the country in the next two years. With a 30 percent rise in rentals–47 percent of them from repeat renters–and 13 percent more Presenter sign-ups year over year, Rafael has a clear road ahead.

Piano Marvel

Location: Rye, Colorado
Website: https://pianomarvel.com/
6,790+ YouTube subscribers

While teaching piano at University of Northern Colorado, Aaron Garner saw some students fall behind while others raced ahead. He dreamed of finding a way to inspire individuals to learn at their own pace. So in 2008, he and his wife, Heidi, created Piano Marvel. Their subscription-based software assesses each student’s current level and then helps them set and reach their goals, with the help of a massive library of 29,000 songs of all genres. The Garners manage their successfully growing business with free tools from Google Workspace. “We love that we can share files, spreadsheets, documents, videos, and so much more via Google Drive,” says Heidi. And they communicate and market their business with email campaigns using Gmail. Today, Piano Marvel has grown into a thriving business, with over 17,000 active subscribers with a premium account and over 310,000 free trial accounts. It’s also a family affair, says Heidi: “Our kids grew up with Piano Marvel, so they're all pianists.”

Joel Shifflet, Heidi’s cousin and Piano Marvel’s VP, uses Google Analytics to track growth trends and traffic to the Piano Marvel website from all over the globe. YouTube is where Aaron shares instructional videos and interviews, and where students share their performances with each other and the over 6,000 people who subscribe to the company’s channel. Staying rooted is central to Piano Marvel’s mission, which is why Aaron still teaches group piano classes in Colorado. Piano Marvel also gives back to children from underserved communities by offering free student subscriptions through groups like the Itiah Angels for Learning in Haiti and Club Vallarta in Mexico. “I absolutely love this part of our company,” says Heidi. “We've had the ability to give back and pay back now. It's been amazing…and we love making it possible for everyone to learn to play the piano and have the gift of music in their lives.”

Friction Labs

Location: Denver, Colorado
Website: https://frictionlabs.com/
14 employees

Sometimes, you just need to get a grip. And when Colorado climbers Kevin Brown and Keah Kalantari found themselves slipping off difficult rock climbs, they took the chalk they were using into a laboratory and discovered it was mostly cheap filler. “We wanted to help athletes everywhere accomplish more. We believe that no one should be held back by bad grip,” says Keah. So Kevin and Keah sourced a supply of high-quality, pharmaceutical-grade magnesium carbonate and founded Friction Labs in 2013. From their humble e-commerce beginnings selling just a few dollars of merchandise per month, today Friction Labs sells their grip products to climbers, weightlifters, and other athletes in 1,000+ retail locations in more than 25 countries worldwide. And along the way, they’ve been using Google products to help them reach new heights.

From the beginning, Kevin and Keah have used free Google Workspace tools like Sheets and Docs to manage their operations without breaking the bank on expensive business software. And during the pandemic, Google Analytics helped them uncover a growing demand for ways to make gyms safer for athletes, leading to their introduction of a new hand-sanitizing hygienic liquid chalk. “When you’re a small business, you’ve got to be scrappy. Google gives us cost-effective ways to do that,” Kevin says. Today, Friction Labs is enjoying 25-percent annual sales growth, and they’re using that money to help introduce hundreds of underserved kids to climbing at gyms across the country. Over 500,000 athletes have trusted Friction Labs products to date–or as Kevin and Keah like to put it, one million hands. “Starting a small business is one of the last great adventures that exist in the world,” Kevin says. And coming from two guys who climb mountains for fun, that’s really saying something.

Olde Man Granola

Location: Westminster, CO
Website: https://oldemangranola.com/
Sold in 600+ locations

Based in Westminster, Colorado, Mark and Fay Plaza began sharing their homemade granola with family and friends, and in 2008, decided to sell some at a local bazaar. It was a hit. The key, says Fay, is simplicity: “Our original nut granola only has six ingredients, and you can understand them all.” Requests started coming in, and they were soon selling Olde Man Granola at farmers markets. After their son, Trevor, left the Marines in 2012 and joined the business, he ramped up production and got the granola into regional and national grocery stores. A few years later, he revamped the website and started advertising through social media and Google Ads. Trevor tracked conversions and monitored traffic with Google Analytics, which helped him fine-tune the user flow and see which ads were most effective. In 2019, revenue increased 30 percent year-over-year (YoY).

As a food manufacturer, Olde Man Granola was considered an essential business and spared major disruption when COVID-19 hit. “We’re very fortunate that we’ve been able to keep producing for stores and customers,” says Trevor. In fact, online sales have even increased—they’ve leaned in to Google Ads and have seen a monthly return on ad spend of 1.56 times and online sales have surged 109 percent YoY. Google Workspace tools have been especially helpful recently. Trevor often works from home, so Google Calendar and Sheets keeps everyone organized and makes collaborating with distributors easy. The team uses Google Meet to communicate in a safe, convenient way. “Our strategy is to be slow and steady, not stretch ourselves too thin, and just keep going,” Trevor explains. Olde Man Granola has now shipped to all 50 states, and produces around 13,000 pounds of granola a month. They’ve just added two more employees to their team. It seems that simplicity has paid off not just for their recipes, but for their business plan as well.

Friendship Bridge

Location: Lakewood, Colorado
Website: www.friendshipbridge.org
156 employees

Founded by Ted and Connie Ning, Friendship Bridge began by providing medical education and supplies to impoverished populations in Vietnam in 1990. In 1998 it shifted its focus to helping indigenous women in Guatemala by offering small loans and education sessions to female entrepreneurs. The loans and education sessions create opportunities for impoverished women to build better lives for themselves, care for their children, and support local communities. As a grassroots nonprofit, Friendship Bridge depends on volunteers to help fundraise and build awareness. To find them, the team relies heavily on digital platforms where they can share their story, field donations, and recruit more people. “We’re really focused on bringing in more young people, and digital is how you reach them,” said Kyra Coates, U.S. marketing coordinator at Friendship Bridge. “It’s a tricky landscape because there’s a lot of noise out there.”

To cut through the clutter and reach more potential supporters with its message, Friendship Bridge uses Google Ads. The organization received a Google Ad Grant in 2015 and ramped up its campaign efforts in 2017. Kyra uses Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager to monitor and optimize the organization’s search campaigns. With employees in both the U.S. and Guatemala, the team also relies on G Suite to effectively communicate internationally. “It allows us to share files easily and get things to one another quickly,” said Kyra.

By increasing its digital efforts, Friendship Bridge has been able to maintain a steady flow of the interns and volunteers who are so critical to its mission. The organization currently serves over 30,000 women per year in Guatemala and will continue expanding to reach more of them. “We’re making long-term changes in Guatemala,” said Kyra, “and, for us, the core of that will always be empowered women.” Over the course of the next three years, the organization plans to transition its pilot programs to permanent programs and will be relying more and more on Google tools to spread its message. “The digital platform has been rewarding in terms of getting information out,” said Kyra. “The web helps us really dial it in and find the people that we need to speak to.”

noosa yoghurt

Location: Bellvue, Colorado
Website: www.noosayoghurt.com
250 employees

In 2007, Koel Thomae, an Australian expatriate who had been living in Colorado, was back in Queensland visiting her family. While cycling home from the beach community of Noosa, she stopped and bought a clear tub of something creamy and delicious. It was passionfruit yoghurt, and upon tasting it, Koel realized that it was too good to stay hidden in the Land Down Under. She licensed the recipe from its creator and set out to start her own yoghurt company back in Colorado. After spotting a local farm’s flyer for home milk delivery service, Koel cold-called fourth-generation farmer, Rob Graves. Together, they founded noosa yoghurt in 2010, initially selling their products at farmers' markets throughout the state.

For noosa yoghurt, online marketing has always been the preferred way for reaching customers. They use YouTube and AdWords, Google's advertising program, to “effectively reach a highly targeted audience of people who are interested in super-premium, delicious-tasting yoghurt," says Vice President of Marketing Christine Dahm. And Google Analytics helps them better understand their customers’ online behavior while keeping marketing spend on a budget. “These Google tools allow smaller companies like us to be really targeted and efficient with our dollars,” Christine adds. “That just isn’t possible with other forms of marketing like television, which reaches so many people who have little to no intention of buying our product.”

With mouth-watering flavors like caramel-chocolate-pecan, strawberry-rhubarb, and blackberry-serrano, noosa’s products can now be found in stores nationwide. They have tripled their business since 2014 and nearly quadrupled their workforce to keep up with demand. In fact, of the 250 people they employ, over 180 are making the yoghurt. The company is also committed to their local community in Northern Colorado. In addition to supporting school fundraisers and conservation efforts, noosa sources all of their milk and honey from a network of farmers within 40 miles of their facility. “Being self-manufactured in Colorado is an important element of what we do,” Christine explains. “We want to make the best-tasting yoghurt in the finest way possible. It’s our mission to make a product that, when someone eats it, they say, ‘Wow. Are you sure that’s yoghurt?’”

Sword & Plough

Location: Denver, Colorado
Website: www.swordandplough.com
90% of Sword & Plough’s sales are made online

Sisters Betsy Núñez and Emily Núñez Cavness grew up in a military family, and Emily is now an active-duty officer in the U.S. Army. In 2013, they founded Sword & Plough, which uses surplus military materials to make tote bags, handbags, backpacks, and other accessories. The company supports various veteran-owned businesses and donates 10% of the profits to veteran-focused organizations. They have relied on the Internet, and Google products, from the very beginning to bring their business to life.

With Emily deployed in Afghanistan, and the rest of the team working remotely from Boston, New York, and Denver, they used Google Apps for Work to stay connected and build their company. Emily recalls, “One of our most memorable magic moments happened on April 15, 2013, when Sword & Plough launched on Kickstarter. We had four of our team members and our parents crowded around the laptop to press Launch. And we did a Google Hangout with our creative director, Haik Kavookjian, so that we could all be together for the momentous occasion. Within two hours of pressing the Launch button, we hit our goal of $20,000! And by the end of the campaign, we raised over $312,000!” Products like Gmail, Google Sheets, and Google Hangouts continue to help this distributed team run the business. One time, a meeting held on a Google Hangout was interrupted when Emily’s base came under mortar attack. “She's thousands of miles away in a remote, war-stricken region, and still able to communicate with her sister and co-founder to provide leadership for this business on the side,” Haik says. “It's pretty incredible.” And as the orders continue to pour in via their website, they monitor their sales and site traffic using Google Analytics.

Sword & Plough now has five employees and they subcontract their manufacturing and design to support veterans working in other companies. The sisters have also begun partnering with other brands, and may expand into physical stores around the country. “Google products have really helped us communicate and grow in ways that otherwise would not have been achievable for a startup, especially one started and being run so remotely,” Haik says.