Carrots 'N' Cake

In 2008, Tina Haupert was gearing up for her wedding, amassing a massive binder of planning materials along with healthy recipes and workouts to help her shape up. "I was lugging around this binder and thought, there must be a better way to do this," she recalls. "I heard about blogging so I decided to just start putting everything online." Tina launched her blog Carrots 'N' Cake on February 3rd 2008, which is, ironically, national Carrot Cake day ("I didn't know it was that day at the time," she says). The project quickly became a personal diary. "I was blogging two to three times a day about my wedding, my workouts, recipes I was trying, and people actually started commenting on my posts."

Three months later, an advertiser reached out to Tina asking to put an ad on her blog. "I remember that first month I earned $70 and was totally thrilled," she says, "so I kept blogging, growing my audience, and I decided to start using Google Ad Manager through a Google Certified Publishing Partner, CafeMedia, to earn money from ads on my blog." At her peak, Tina drew over 1.5M page views a month and captivated a highly engaged audience with her posts. "My ad revenue kept growing - doubling and even tripling year over year - and I started earning enough that I was able to quit my full time job and launch my business."

Using her blog and ad revenue as a launch pad, Tina has since grown her business into new areas. "I signed three book deals," she explains, "I started doing 1:1 coaching with my readers, I started a podcast - we've just grown so much. The ad revenue started as our biggest source of income and gave me the stability and capital to grow in new ways. I don't think I could have built the business I have without the audience I fostered on my blog. " With all this growth, Tina hired a part-time team of five women to help manage her social media accounts and coach clients. "As my team and business have grown, we've turned to Google Calendar as a homebase - I have my meetings, workouts, reminders, everything. It's great for a busy small business and acts as my schedule and daily to-do list."

Carrots ‘N' Cake is now a multifaceted fitness and wellness company that helps women achieve their goals. "I'm really proud that we've been able to adapt and evolve over time to stay relevant," Tina says. "It's been a journey that started with a blog and a dedicated audience, and I was able to transform that into a business that helps women achieve their health goals."