We pretty much use all the Google Workspace tools–Drive, Gmail, Calendar, Meet–to help with organization and communication both with the team and externally.
Bella Lam
Founder & CEO
As a college senior, Bella Lam spent many nights cooking and baking vegan treats with her boyfriend, Myles Olson. That’s what inspired Bella and Myles to create Coconut Whisk in 2018. Today their company sells plant-based and gluten-free pancake, waffle, and cookie mixes in over 1,000 stores in the U.S. and on the Coconut Whisk website. “We’re really complete opposites, but what grounds us is our shared values: sustainability, compassion, family, community,” says Bella. The team has always run their operations with Google Workspace tools like Drive, Slides, and Sheets. “When we started the business, it was very scrappy and DIY. We used all the free tools that we could, and Google really came through,” says Bella. Google Ads help Coconut Whisk reach would-be customers looking for delicious plant-based foods and ingredients. “That was a huge tool for us to use to capture people who were searching for our products,” Bella says.
In 2021, Bella and Myles also opened Coconut Whisk Cafe, offering a place where the downtown Minneapolis community can gather and enjoy delicious treats. The cafe sells their popular mixes as well as bubble tea and coffee, and has a retail space that features local and BIPOC-owned businesses. The Google Business Profile for the cafe brings many hungry customers to the door. “It’s been really huge for us when it comes to driving traffic and searchability,” Bella says. The coconut tree is known as the “all-giving tree,” and Coconut Whisk has fought against hunger and for many other causes. That includes supporting artists who showcase their work at the cafe and will soon design Coconut Whisk packaging. Says Bella, “That's what our mission was from day one, ‘How do we give and how do we serve people?’ I think that's what food is all about.”