Maine

Maine Fly Company

Location: Yarmouth, Maine
Website: https://maineflyco.com/
40% YoY Growth

Jeff Davis was driving home cross-country after settling his late father’s estate–his dad’s fly fishing gear on the seat next to him. He thought about his father’s love for the outdoors, and the peace that came from fishing Maine’s scenic rivers. “Something resonated with me,” Jeff recalls. A business executive at the time, he began to rethink his path, wanting to inspire his own children to live a fulfilling life. He decided to honor his father’s memory, celebrate Maine’s fly fishing heritage, and “keep the art of the rodsmith alive.” His hobby of making small-batch fly fishing rods soon grew into Maine Fly Company, founded in 2018. “We believe the fly rod should be as unique as the angler,” says Jeff, who names each rod after a Maine river. When the company’s “Inspiration” video became a hit on YouTube, the media took notice. “Our website started going nuts when our story got out,” Jeff says. “We started to see the stars align.”

Jeff uses Google Workspace tools to organize and share documents, images, and data with staff. He also began running Google Ads in 2019, to expand beyond New England to stay busy year round. “We wanted that national presence from inception, so we could have a four-season fly fishing business in Maine,” Jeff says. “With e-commerce, we can market globally with the click of a mouse. I’m able to reach hundreds of thousands of people that I couldn't access without Google.” Growing fast, he set up shop in a historic mill on the Royal River in 2022, hiring three employees. The company’s international presence has grown eightfold, with 40-percent year-over-year business growth. In 2024, he’s launching a second brand, Repurposed Waders, to collect and make soft goods from old waders. Jeff thinks his father would be proud: “Google tools will help us promote this new entity,” he says, “so we can have a greater environmental impact in the long run.”

Eskuad

Location: Portland, Maine
Website: https://home.eskuad.com/
2.5x revenue growth YoY

After working long days wrangling teenagers on school trips to Patagonia in Argentina, Max Echeverría would then have to spend another couple hours sending reports to supervisors and anxious parents. “All I wanted was to get a little more sleep,” he recalls. That was the spark for Eskuad, the mobile-first field data platform Max, a native of Chile, founded in 2019; Eskuad is now based in Maine. It lets workers in remote areas enter data on the spot instead of waiting for internet access, saving time and boosting accuracy. Max and his team developed synching algorithms that transmit the most crucial data at low bandwidth, with the rest following once connectivity improves. The app is distributed on Google Play, which Max says gives Eskuad added credibility. The international team uses Google Workspace tools to collaborate, coordinating almost daily with Google Meet.

In 2021, Eskuad moved to Portland, a hub for their main user base of maritime, forestry, and tourism industries. Eskuad was accepted into the Google for Startups Latino Founders Fund in 2022. “That was huge,” Max recalls. “We were developing a new version of the app, so we weren’t selling and were almost out of funds. It came just in time.” Besides the financial award, the program’s sales training was key. “Revenue has grown 2.5 times,” Max says. “In the first two months of this year alone, app engagement was 110 percent of what it was all of last year. That’s a direct result of the training we got.” Eskuad now serves 33 companies, up from seven before the award, and investors have noticed. “Our funding round is oversubscribed. That was mostly due to the growth and Google’s seal of approval,” he shares. Eskuad is updating features and expanding to more countries, but Max says their mission is the same: “We’re helping people work better and get home to rest, instead of spending time building reports.”

Seawicks Candle Company

Location: Richmond, Maine
Website: https://www.seawicks.com/
35% of website traffic from Google

For Michael and Cara Gaffney, deep pine woods and the Atlantic Ocean smell like home. For years the couple lit candles during Maine’s long winter nights, but often felt disappointed by the lack of quality and fragrances. Taking a chance in 2011, they sold their old VW bus for $5,000 and began hand-making their own candles in a boathouse near their home in Edgecomb. The Seawicks Candle Company was born. Today the company makes high-quality candles with 100% American-grown soy wax, with delightful Maine-inspired aromas like Coastal Storm, Blueberry Fest, and Evening by the Fire. “Quality and craftsmanship are what set us apart,” says Michael, and Seawick candles are sold in over 300 retailers in the U.S., including L.L. Bean and Whole Foods.

While they experienced retail success, online sales proved to be a bigger challenge. “When we started, we put our candles online and… nothing,” says Michael. “People want to smell candles before they buy them.” In 2015, Michael and Cara began using Google products to boost their online sales. They ran Google Ads to reach online shoppers using targeted messages that convinced them to try Seawicks candles, even without a sniff test. Google Analytics helped them figure out what worked best. “Cara uses it to track our metrics,” says Michael. “It details all the percentages of where the traffic is coming from in the regions that we're targeting.” The early results were good, and continue to get better: online sales increased another 32 percent from 2020 to 2021. With their added success, the Gaffneys are able to give back to the people of Maine, with donations to help support another local, family-owned business and groups such as Action For Animals. “Maine, it's just got such a cool vibe,” says Michael. “We've been making candles the same way for the last 10 years, and we really want to keep it going and continue to do good things.”

Experience Maine

Location: Portland, Maine
Website: http://experiencemaine.com/
70% customers come from Google Ads

In Maine, they call them “Boomerangs”—people who move away, miss Maine’s beauty and lifestyle, and then move back again. Rachel Sagiroglu, an experienced event planner, was a Boomerang who wanted to bring the world with her when she returned. In the summer of 2019, she launched Experience Maine, a travel concierge and events company offering customized itineraries and meeting planning. From the start, Rachel employed digital tools like Google Analytics and Google Ads—which became the top source for revenue and new customers for the travel side of the company—to grow and build partnerships within the Maine tourism industry. Within six months of founding her business, she had trips and events booked for the upcoming season. And then COVID-19 hit, upending the travel industry and creating enormous challenges for the new company. Rachel knew adjusting her business model would be critical to staying afloat.

Rachel’s first step was to launch a complementary online retail site, experiencemainemade.com. “If people can't come to Maine,” she reasoned, “why not bring a little bit of Maine to them?” Working with a designer to make custom boxes and sourcing artisan goods from the state, she was soon shipping local wares nationwide. Rachel uses the insights she gains from Google Analytics to “optimize the site for increased engagement and gauge which products are seeing the most traffic.” By late 2020, new Google Ads campaigns were in the works; Rachel was able to easily tailor her ads, an important step given fluctuating travel restrictions and interests. Rachel plans to expand into luxury rentals and high-end events. She’d also like to grow the retail site, which helps support a number of Maine makers. She realizes that staying flexible is key. “I have the ideas in my head, and the processes in place. Having Google tools as a resource to support me allows me to be nimble and execute one way or the other.”

Maine Lobster Now

Location: Portland, Maine
Website: www.mainelobsternow.com
50 employees

Many Americans, especially those who don’t live on the East or West Coasts, have a hard time accessing fresh seafood. Often, the seafood they can get their hands on has likely been sitting in a cooler in the back of a grocery store for days. This inspired Julian Klenda, a lifelong resident of Portland, Maine, to launch Maine Lobster Now, a company that overnight ships fresh-caught Maine lobster to the crustacean-deprived across the country. “People love coming to Maine for the food and the experience,” said Julian. “We’re giving people an opportunity to enjoy a piece of that at home.” Since launching in 2012, Julian has used the internet to reach consumers who crave the kind of fresh seafood he provides. “Connecting the seafood industry to modern technology has been the key to success,” Julian said. “Especially with Google, we’ve really been able to connect to customers.”

Google Ads is one of Julian’s top sources for new revenue. His team runs text, display, and video ads and adjusts them based on what they know about the audiences they’re trying to reach. “If someone in Louisiana is searching to buy lobster, the ad would say, ‘We ship to Louisiana,’” said Julian. “I think it’s pretty cool that Google Ads is that powerful and that we have that much control over what the consumer is seeing.” Maine Lobster Now also uses Google Analytics to inform its search strategy and Google Trends to see what people are searching for at different times of the year. “It’s great to have a tool that gives you an inside scoop on what’s going on,” Julian said. “It definitely helps us meet consumer needs a lot better.”

Filling a big need for residents in the middle of the country (as well as a lot of stomachs), Maine Lobster Now has successfully provided access to fresh seafood to more than 75,000 customers and has grown 100% in revenue year over year. “I set three- to five-year goals, and we typically meet them within one or two years because of our partnership with Google,” said Julian. “It’s really trained me and forced me to think on a much larger scale.” Maine Lobster Now also donates money to a number of different charities and supports its community by working with local fisherman. Moving forward, Julian hopes to expand by sourcing more seafood from the West Coast and by adding a direct-to-chef program to the website. “I realize how big the world and the market is, so we’re considering expanding to other seafood,” said Julian. “Our plan is to keep our foot on the gas and continue to double our business as well as our impact in the lobster and seafood industry.”

Sea Bags

Location: Portland, ME
Website: www.seabags.com
100 employees

Sustainability is sewn into the very fabric of Sea Bags’ business, from the products they sell to the processes they use to make them. Since their founding in 1999, the Portland-based company has kept nearly 600 tons of retired sails out of landfills by transforming them into nautically inspired tote bags and accessories. They have also created 100 jobs for local sewers, artists, and craftspeople. “Manufacturing here and sourcing materials locally are the cornerstones of our business,” explains President and COO Beth Shissler. “Maine has a rich history in the cut and sew industry, and we’re passionate about bringing it back.”

A major engine of Sea Bags’ growth is their online business. “It’s grown about 500 percent over the past five years,” says Vice President of Marketing and E-commerce Laura Hnatow. “And Google has definitely been a part of why we were able to achieve that.” The company uses AdWords, Google’s advertising program, to market their bags to customers looking for eco-friendly fashion statements. “AdWords brings in one of the largest percentages of new users to our site, and a lot of these customers are visiting more pages per session than those from other channels,” she shares. They also use Google Shopping campaigns and YouTube ads to visually showcase their products across the web. And with G Suite tools, such as Gmail, Docs, and Drive, “we’re able to scale our operations as we grow,” Laura notes.

With over 18,000 online orders and half a million unique visitors to their website annually, Sea Bags is preparing for new horizons in 2018. They plan to pursue international markets and are opening four more retail stores along the East Coast, in addition to the 13 currently in operation. Yet as they expand, their greatest focus continues to be at home. “We always talk about the ripple effect of making our products locally,” Beth says. From designers to manufacturers, Sea Bags proudly supports Maine jobs across the board, and aims to create a brand that Beth hopes will “stick around for generations way past us.” To echo the words of their mission, “Every sail has a journey. At Sea Bags, we make sure that journey never ends.”

Stonewall Kitchen

Location: York, Maine
Website: www.stonewallkitchen.com
383 employees

In the early 1990s, Jonathan King and Jim Stott were "two broke guys" who enjoyed giving their homemade jams and chutneys as gifts. A friend suggested they sell their concoctions at a local farmers market, so they hand-labeled 300 jars and set them out—selling out on their very first try. Stonewall Kitchen, the brand they cofounded, now has 10 retail stores in the Northeast, a catalog business, a wholesale business stocking merchandise in 6,000 retail locations nationwide, an international business in 42 countries, and an e-commerce website. "This is an American Dream kind of story," says Janine Somers, Director of Marketing and Direct-to-Consumer Sales. "Jon and Jim were natural product developers." They were also savvy brand builders who launched their website in 1999—using digital marketing to spread the word about their delectable jams, jellies, condiments, prepared foods, and snacks.

Google tools help Stonewall Kitchen grow their business in a competitive marketplace. They use AdWords, Google's advertising program, to bring foodies searching for gourmet goodies and gifts to their website. “In 2016, we saw a 42 percent increase in revenue directly attributed to AdWords,” Janine says. Google Analytics also equips the company with vital business intelligence. "We have a complicated infrastructure and multiple systems that don't always report the same data," Janine explains. "But Google Analytics has a wealth of data that lets us see trends and gain actionable insights about our customers, website traffic, and marketing campaigns."

Stonewall Kitchen adds over 100 jobs during the holiday season, and all of the manufacturing for their “wet” products, such as their jams, jellies, and salsas, is done in their York facility. They also give back through community outreach programs and charitable funding. "We've come a long way from the farmers market, but we haven't forgotten the support from our local community," Janine says. The business meanwhile shows no signs of slowing down. “We’d love to see our website sales continue to grow at a double-digit rate,” she remarks. They also plan to increase international sales, which are now 10 percent of their business. “Google helps us create a strong, integrated web presence, which is a really important piece of our overall business,” says Janine.

Raye’s Mustard

Location: Eastport, Maine
Website: www.rayesmustard.com
Raye’s Mustard has been in business for 116 years

The Raye family has been milling mustard for four generations. In 1900, J. Wesley Raye, a 20-year-old sea captain's son, founded the business in the family smokehouse to make mustard sauce for Maine’s burgeoning sardine industry. But then came canned tuna, and the public's taste for the salty little fish ebbed like the outgoing tide. "The sardine industry died off," says Karen Raye, who bought the business with her husband, Kevin, from his cousin in 2006. "We had to figure out, ‘How do we keep this company going?’ We knew the mustard the sardines were packed in was really good, so we decided to make gourmet and specialty mustards."

The Internet opened up fertile new fishing grounds to market Raye's gourmet mustards. About 25% of sales are online. Karen and Kevin relaunched their e-commerce website twice, using Google Analytics to figure out what netted the best results. “It's important to have a crisp-looking website with appetite appeal and a shopping cart that makes it easy for people to make their selections,” Karen says. “Google Analytics lets us know how customers are finding us,” she says. “Customers who find us through Google are now customers for life.”

The couple has doubled sales and production, employing six full-time people and another three or four over the holidays. Raye’s Historic Old Stone Mill still stands as a working museum. "When we started out, we had about three flavors,” Karen says. “Today we have upwards of 25.” They offer gourmet blends such as Brown Ginger and Garlic Honey Wine, but their original Down East Schooner remains a bestseller and gold-medal winner in worldwide mustard competitions. The company founders would be proud. "It's fun to watch the company grow and progress,” Karen says. “But it's really about preserving jobs in our part of Maine."