Minnesota

Taha Bahaji’s early experiences as a substitute teacher gave him a firsthand look at the pressures educators face, and the many needs, stakeholders, and goals they have to address daily. Add in students’ varied learning styles, staff shortages, and class time lost to the pandemic, and “teachers end up with their hair on fire,” he says. With a master’s degree in data science and a PhD underway in learning technology, Taha saw an opportunity to design digital classroom exercises that help K–12 teachers overcome learning barriers and close achievement gaps. He launched Ilmiya, an AI-powered lesson planning platform, in 2021. AI technology can adapt lessons automatically to a student’s pace, flag areas where they need extra assistance, and offer students helpful nudges, in the form of questions and hints. “By introducing AI into the process, we're able to improve student outcomes and make teachers’ jobs easier,” he says.

Ilmiya’s infrastructure is built on Google Cloud. “With Cloud, we’ve been able to create a seamless, efficient platform that supports our mission, while ensuring we can grow and adapt as our customers’ needs evolve,” Taha says. Google Workspace helps the distributed team easily collaborate, and they use Gemini and Gemini Advanced to speed up internal processes. “These products help us do a lot of things on the fly now that just a year ago took a lot of time,” he says. “We can get processes that used to take two weeks down to a single day.” Ilmiya’s goal is to help students improve their scores within six months or less, and last month, their Vertex AI model served more than 1 million requests for students. While Taha finds tangible numbers encouraging, he’s most passionate about seeing students engaged with learning. “Now they have confidence, and they're excited to be in school. And teachers can get back to doing what they love–focusing on the children.”

After being laid off from his corporate communications job in the early 2000s, Jeff Taxdahl said to his wife, Wenda, “Let’s do something for ourselves.” He knew about putting company logos on apparel from his work–and that the custom embroidery industry was open to newcomers. “There’s not a lot of capital required, and it’s a low barrier to entry,” Jeff says. “We actually started in our basement.” With “one small embroidery machine, a computer, and a dream,” they founded Thread Logic in 2002, selling custom logo-embroidered shirts and hats to local businesses. In 2005, they decided to “dip our toes into this internet thing,” launching their first website. “We started with pay-per-click ads and never looked back,” Jeff says. As more competing businesses got online, the couple revised their marketing strategy, switching from a previous ad service to Google Ads in 2010 to expand their reach beyond the region.

“Google Ads allowed us to find a much bigger audience,” Jeff says. “We’ve grown seven times since using them.” Thread Logic now operates in an industrial facility with 60 embroidery heads and 28 employees, shipping hundreds of thousands of products to customers across the country each year. They’re a long way from their basement operation, but their commitment to quality and customer service hasn’t changed. “We really want to establish relationships to get repeat orders,” Jeff explains. Since Thread Logic adopted AI-powered Performance Max in 2022, new customer acquisition increased by 73 percent. Their customers now include corporations, government, law enforcement, education, and nonprofits. They use Google Analytics 4 with AI to analyze data about the customer journey, while their Google Business Profile features hundreds of rave reviews. “E-commerce is about trust, and that's what a review conveys,” Jeff says. “This is true today as it was true in 2005.”

Zach Johnson takes pride in being a sixth-generation family farmer in Lowry, Minnesota. The sprawling farm has evolved to meet new demands in the more than 150 years since his ancestors first bought the land, now primarily growing corn and soybeans. There once was a time where everyone knew a farmer, but Zach sensed there was now a disconnect between farmers and consumers. He grew frustrated with the misinformation about farming he saw online, so, in 2016, he started his YouTube channel, Millennial Farmer. “The entire idea behind it was to try to connect with people about farming,” Zach says. And he chose the name Millennial Farmer to showcase how hardworking his generation can be. “[Farmers] are still those same people doing what we love to do. We've grown more efficient. We've gotten better at what we do...and I wanted to show people that from the inside out.” Zach’s vlogs documenting life from his perspective have gained him over 875,000 subscribers in five years, fueled by his on-camera charm and the evergreen day-to-day challenges of a farmer.

Now, Zach earns much more from YouTube than he does from the farm. He also sells merchandise and has two podcasts. “We work with sponsors. I do a lot of public speaking and YouTube remains and will always be the foundation for why the brand is here,” Zach says. Through YouTube, Zach has reached an entirely different audience than he ever thought possible. Zach has also been able to give back to his community, raising more than $65,000 for first responders who help keep farmers safe. Most importantly, he is securing the future of his family’s farm for the next generation thanks to the “FarmTube” phenomenon. “I'm able to help finance my own tractors, my own land…at a faster pace than I would be able to otherwise.” Change happens fast, even if the people stay the same, and that’s what makes farming so special in the first place.

Marilee Nelson has long been an advocate of clean living. It started when illness had her facing a kidney transplant and she needed to change her diet and lifestyle. Years later, her 10-year-old son Douglas was exposed to high levels of pesticides, leaving him extremely sensitive to chemicals. Determined to heal him, Marilee learned how chemical exposure can impact health and removed all products with harmful chemicals from their home. Douglas recovered, but soon after, Marilee’s niece, Allison Evans, was experiencing unexplained pain. Marliee invited Allison and her best friend Kelly Love to join her at her home for a summer detox. Soon, Allison was pain-free, too. Marilee had now seen and experienced enough to know there was a need for clean products. Together with Allison and Kelly, she started Branch Basics, a company that makes and sells natural, non-toxic cleaners and laundry detergents.

In 2009, the team launched a website with two goals: sell cleaning products and educate people on health and wellness. “Cleaning was always our way of opening people up to the wealth of knowledge that Marilee had,” said Kelly. “We truly are an education company — that’s where our heart is.” Using a content marketing strategy, the trio initially focused on search engine optimization to promote products and blog posts. They saw success and eventually decided to try paid search with Google Ads as well. Today, Google Ads accounts for about 20% of the company’s total site traffic. “We’ve seen great success with Google Ads,” said Tim Murphy, CEO of Branch Basics. The company also uses Google Analytics to monitor its campaigns and G Suite tools like Hangouts, Docs, Sheets, and Drive to stay connected.

Google has helped Branch Basics educate more people about the dangers of toxic cleaning products and sell more of its safe-to-use cleaners and detergents. “We love hearing that someone else’s life has been transformed,” said Marilee. Branch Basics plans to continue growing. Moving forward, Branch Basics wants to continue to build on its mission to help those suffering from chemicals by offering clean-living experiences. “We do eventually see ourselves going beyond just cleaning,” said Kelly. “We want to open a space that serves clean food and products, where people can come and experience what we’re preaching.”