Massachusetts

Daniel Goldsmith and Matthew Evans are the co-founders of Julius Education, a workforce technology company that connects job seekers with openings in the energy sector and other fast-moving industries. The two were working for an online learning publisher in 2020 when they spotted a market need. “We saw companies still using outdated hiring tools,” Daniel says. “We help by using AI to extract and organize job listing data, so many more job seekers can discover these roles and find opportunities.” For example, Daniel notes, companies may label the same job with hundreds of different names. “If you're a job seeker with no background in the sector, that makes it particularly opaque.” Using Google AI-powered tools like Gemini, Julius Education works with trade associations, colleges, community organizations, and job training programs to better organize job opportunities and bring more talent into their pipelines.

Daniel and Matthew attended the Google for Startups AI Academy: American Infrastructure as they were scaling up to serve more industries. “We moved our entire tech team onto Google tools based on the insight and advice we gained,” Daniel says. “This was a big milestone for our company.” They use Gemini to prepare labor market data for analysis, and Google Analytics and Big Query to understand how learners use their tools and navigate their careers. “Now our analysts–without extensive technical experience–can work with vast amounts of data. Big Query makes it simple to analyze data and find significant results.” They also use Google Workspace to collaborate with partners. With business tripling last year, they’re expanding to other sectors. “We like to think we are the data backbone to help navigate this complex landscape,” Daniel says. “The use of AI to help drive talent mobility will be critical to the future economy.”

Clothing is the thread that connects the places Angela Sison calls home. Her mother owns a garment workshop in the Philippines; Angela went to fashion school in San Francisco; and, in 2016, she joined her future husband on Martha’s Vineyard, leaving a corporate fashion job to found her own design brand, Conrado. The aesthetic is a comfortable, versatile elegance, which Angela calls “New England meets the tropics with a California vibe.” The style was inspired by family trips from the city to the beach, and by her grandfather, a traveling salesman who moved seamlessly between urban and rural settings. The company is named after him. Angela is committed to sustainability and uses only remnants or overstock, saving over 50,000 yards of fabric from landfills so far. She launched her brand at a local flea market, and after selling out on the first day, told herself, “I think I can do this.”

In 2023, Angela added a shop to her design studio, where people can browse her creations, plus accessories, skincare items, and more. To help attract customers, Angela turned to Google. “My Business Profile was really helpful when I moved to the new location. There was a 38-percent increase of people using it to find me,” she says. Performance Max campaigns expand her reach beyond the island, and accounted for a 52-percent rise in website traffic in December. “It’s easy for me to connect my website to [Performance Max campaigns] and provide inputs to pull products directly into the ads,” she notes. Angela also uses insights from Google Analytics to improve webpages: A data-based website update resulted in a 205-percent jump in views in 2023. Meanwhile, Angela’s busy building connections. She networks with other AAPI-led businesses, teaches classes on social media, and helps kids learn how to mend clothes. Most of all, she says, “I love connecting with customers, and seeing how my clothing makes them feel confident.”

“Food is my love language” is more than a slogan for Sola Ajao, owner of Destiny African Market Variety & Wholesale. Those are words to live by as she serves her community with authentic African foods and goods, including her famous homemade moin moin bean cakes. Sola learned to cook while growing up in Nigeria, and when she immigrated to Boston in 1986, she was surprised that she had to travel to New York City to find African spices and foods. That led to her Boston catering business, cooking authentic African dishes for weddings and other events. It thrived for 30+ years, until a serious bout with COVID changed her life. “I prayed that if I survived, I would open my own store,” Sola recalls. She made that dream come true in 2021, opening Destiny African Market to serve the area’s diverse population and Afro-Caribbean communities.

Sola uses Google Workspace to help manage her business, using video calls on Google Meet for teamwork, Docs for recordkeeping, and Sheets to track inventory. Her Google Business Profile identifies Destiny African Market as both a women- and Black-owned business, which helps bring in customers searching for African food. “Like any business, we’re also a digital business,” says Sola’s daughter Adebukola Ajao, digital marketing manager. “People searching for ‘African market’ find our Business Profile. This helps get them in the door. Today, 85% of our calls come from Google.” Now customers from New York and other states come to Sola’s market, and she plans to start selling goods online as part of her effort to bring African food into mainstream American food culture. Because community is family, Sola donates food to local charitable organizations. “Food is how we show people we love them,” Sola says. “Google helps us let people know we are here.”

Esther Wallace came late to basketball, picking it up when she was 15 years old. Still, she played Division I ball in university and went on to play and coach in England. Esther felt lucky to have found the sport, which helped shape her identity and built her self-confidence. But even as she earned a Master’s degree in marketing and landed a full-time job, she kept asking herself, “What if I had more exposure to women’s sports, and had begun playing sooner? How much better could I have been?” That led her to start her Boston-based clothing company Playa Society in 2018. Playa Society sells streetwear designed to bridge the gap between women and sports and fuel conversations about gender equality, like T-shirts reading “Girls who play sports become women who lead.” Says Esther, “I decided to create the brand that I needed when I was younger–one that would show the world that women can be strong, bold, and beautiful all at the same time.”

In 2020, Esther turned to Google Ads to bring more customers to her website. When pro athletes posted photos of themselves wearing Playa Society sweats, Esther wanted to make sure social media users would know where to buy them. The company has strengthened its e-commerce offerings with tools like Google Merchant Center and the Google Channel on Shopify. Esther learns what works to bring visitors to Playa Society through her Google Business Profile, and uses Gmail, Google Meet, and other Google Workspace tools to help run the business. With the help of Google tools, her website traffic has increased by 50 percent, and Playa Society has seen a 30 percent increase in sales. Today, Playa Society is fulfilling Esther’s belief in the power of community and gender equity. Says Esther, “For me it means representation; it means being the Black-woman-entrepreneur that just one girl needs to see in order to spark a light in her.”