North Dakota

Some parents wish for healthier foods to feed their kids. Mollie Ficocello and her sisters, Annie and Grace, did more than wish: they made their own. In 2020, they returned to their parents’ family farm in Grand Forks and started their own all-natural pasta company. "Family, food, and nutrition are very important to us," Mollie says. "We wanted to create a nutritious, minimally processed food that brings the family farm to the front." 3 Farm Daughters sells a unique pasta made from a non-GMO, high-resistant starch wheat that delivers more protein, fewer calories, and four-and-a-half times the fiber of traditional pasta. Customer feedback alerted the sisters to their pasta’s low-glycemic index, leading them to tweak their marketing to showcase that quality as well. At first selling direct-to-consumer, they now feed 20,000 customers annually thanks to retail partnerships that include national grocery chains.

3 Farm Daughters began using Google Ads in 2021; Ads now account for about 13 percent of their website traffic and 39 percent of their orders. Mollie says their 2024 adoption of AI-powered Performance Max campaigns led to a tenfold increase in website conversions year-over-year. "AI tools allow us to scale a little bit faster and better than we would otherwise.” She calls Google Workspace the “workhorse” that helps 3 Farm Daughters run smoothly. They use Gemini in Google Docs to draft emails and develop content, and YouTube to help customers "align with the story." And Mollie is quick to connect Google tools to the company’s 200 percent growth in direct-to-consumer sales in 2024. With a plan to use Performance Max campaigns to better find and reach new customers, 3 Farm Daughters is projecting 100 percent year-over-year growth in direct-to-consumer sales. “We truly want to understand our customers,” Mollie says. "We want to be a friend in the food business.”

The Doans founded Black Leg Ranch in North Dakota back in 1882, with a dream of raising the first Black Angus Cattle in the region. Six generations later, their descendants still sell beef and buffalo meat grown on the 20,000-acre ranch. They’ve also branched out beyond ranching to add an on-site event space, tours, a hunting outfit, and a brewery. “Our family is known for taking risks,” says Jeremy Doan, who co-owns the ranch with his dad and brothers. “In our community, small businesses are the driving force for jobs, for paying the taxes on the land, and keeping generations coming back.”

The Doans have used digital tools for decades, changing strategies along the way. Jeremy says video is now an important way to generate excitement and reach a new generation of customers. The ranch creates YouTube videos of visitors and events to share in their newsletters; the videos have been seen a half-million times so far, and generate 10 percent of their yearly business. “YouTube has helped us show what we do, so we spend less time talking and sending emails,” Jeremy says. “People share our YouTube videos with their friends and family. People come to us and say ‘Hey, I want to do exactly what they did in the video.’” Online search has also helped them fill gaps during slower seasons, boosting sales by an extra 10 percent a year. “If we have bison or deer hunts that aren't selling, we just post a Google Ad to target certain keywords and consumers. Typically we fill those spots within a few days,” says Jeremy. He says experimenting with ways to reach customers allows them to keep building and bettering Black Leg Ranch. “Hopefully this will keep it fun for future generations and profitable at the same time.”

Clint Howitz, self-described pack leader at dogIDs, can’t remember a time when he didn’t have dogs. Often frustrated by low-quality pet products, Clint founded dogIDs in 2005 to provide rugged dog tags, water- and odor-proof collars, leashes, and other high-quality canine wares. “I realized there was a strong need for personalized dog products, especially collars,” he recalls. Their signature ScruffTag collar, with built-in nameplate, is a hit, along with embroidered collars. Initially using an online marketplace model, selling other brands as well as their own, dogIDs has used Google Ads since 2007 to reach customers nationwide and in Canada, and 30 percent of sales now come from Google Ads. To connect with each other and with their marketing and manufacturing partners, dogIDs uses Google Meet. Four-legged team members, whose job titles include “The Fetch Monster” and “The Fun Police,” are always on call for product testing.

dogIDs gets almost all their supplies from U.S. sources, and partners with regional artisans for designs. They posted their first YouTube video in 2010, and their channel now has over 1.5 million views and pushes traffic to their website. “The videos offer tips to customers on things like how to size their dog or wash a collar, providing good customer service while also reducing phone time,” explains Clint. In 2021, dogIDs transitioned away from the marketplace model to focus solely on their own brand. “It’s now the craft business it was meant to be,” Clint says. “It’s much healthier, and we are poised to grow product lines and revenue.” That’s good news for their charity partners, like The Grey Muzzle Organization, which aims to improve the lives of at-risk senior dogs. In 2021, customer donations to Grey Muzzle were dogIDs’ number three “product,'' and their “Paw It Forward” program matches 10 percent–something even “The Fun Police” can endorse.

When you hear “tech startup,” North Dakota agriculture may not come to mind. But when Jake Joraanstad and Ryan Raguse met in college and launched a joint mobile technology venture, their farming roots steered them toward ag. They knew that while physical infrastructure for moving grain—such as highways and barges—was well-developed, digital infrastructure was lacking. In 2017, Jake and Ryan founded Bushel, a Fargo-based platform that empowers farmers with tools and real-time data such as scale tickets or inventories, and giving grain companies an efficient way to connect to growers and processors. They used YouTube to engage customers and introduce new products and training videos. Insights from Google Analytics helped them tweak their YouTube Ads for increased watch-times and conversions. Within two years, 25,000 farmers were using their app. “The access and control the farmers now have lets them make informed decisions,” Jake says. “They can talk to the grain company more strategically.”

When COVID-19 disrupted industries nationwide, including ag, Bushel proved their worth. “The products and platform we brought to market solved real problems,” Jake says. Contracts could be handled electronically and farmers could receive automated updates about new safety protocols and more, keeping grain moving efficiently. He adds, “The tools we created helped this industry segment navigate the pandemic.” Net new users increased by 50 percent, with 40,000 farmers and 1,700 U.S. and Canadian locations now on the platform. The company itself, which had always used Google Workspace products for business operations, was able to keep functioning—and grow—by using the collaborative nature of Workspace to work remotely. It also enabled them to hire team members with ag expertise in different U.S. locations. “With Workspace we’ve been able to scale efficiently,” Jake says, “and the collaborative tools are indispensable.”