There are unlimited ways to grow a company, and all across Naperville, businesses are choosing theirs and running with it, growing in revenue, in brick-and-mortar space, in the digital realm — and in impact.
Success stories in businesses across Naperville
Expanding Naperville businesses in popular industries including health care, pet care, cybersecurity and e-commerce made this year’s Inc. 5000, the magazine’s list of the fastest-growing private companies in the nation.
The I-88 corridor hosts businesses — roughly 600 of them, according to the Naperville Development Partnership — that are growing in the research and development, manufacturing and engineering categories, even one that’s putting a 2020s spin on Naperville’s agricultural beginnings.
New restaurant and retail spaces are under construction, especially at the green space-centered Block 59 development that’s revitalizing a tired strip mall. And Naperville’s commercial core is as bustling as ever, the Downtown Naperville Alliance says, despite streetscape work and Washington Street bridge reconstruction.
It adds up to a business environment that is full of companies large and small, legacy and startup, all finding ways to grow and stay relevant, said Monica Conners, who took over in May as president of the Naperville Development Partnership.
“The economy is very vibrant here in Naperville,” Conners said. “The technology and engineering expertise that we have here is phenomenal.”
Here’s a look at how several Naperville businesses are finding their own ways to grow.
Growing by the golden rule
When Naperville residents Adam Ratner and Wendy Hayum-Gross started their therapy and counseling practice in 2019, they wanted to follow the golden rule. So they set out to treat not only their clients, but also the therapists they hire, the way they wanted to be treated. And it’s worked.
Listed at No. 571 on this year’s Inc. 5000, Grow Wellness Group literally has grown — from two or three therapists when the partners founded the company, to roughly 60 now, situated inside about a dozen separate office “cocoons” inside the historic 5th Avenue Station building.
Ratner and Hayum-Gross both had business careers before becoming therapists. And they both want their company to live up to the ideals of what therapy can be, truly caring for those with whom they work and guiding people along their journey.
Therapist office spaces at Grow Wellness Group at the 5th Avenue Station building in Naperville are designed to be comfortable like a living room. Photo courtesy: Grow Wellness Group
“We never had a business plan to grow to a certain size,” Hayum-Gross said. “We wanted a different experience for people. We wanted the therapists to be supported and cared for so they could provide the most for their clients.”
It’s the little things that help people truly feel seen and supported, so these are the little things Grow Wellness Group does: set up each office cocoon so it feels like a living room, and offer an in-house yoga studio — one without any mirrors. The business also has created a nonprofit that funds therapy sessions for those in financial need and is placing additional counselors in Naperville-area schools.
Grow Wellness Group now sees roughly 1,600 clients a month for needs as varied as sports-related performance anxiety, ADHD, autism, mood disorders, grief, life transitions and couples or family counseling.
“‘We can do more.’ That’s one statement that has always kept us going,” Ratner said. “We can do more, and the impact would be greater.”
Growing by the basics
John Ahlberg, founder and CEO of Waident Technology Solutions in Naperville, says his business grows largely by referrals and by caring about customers. Photo courtesy: Waident Technology Solutions
Naperville-based Waident Technology Solutions is 20 years old and grows the old-school way, CEO and Founder John Ahlberg says — by referrals and by caring about the customer.
“I really wanted to focus on the client’s business and the users, not as much the technology, because that’s kind of the easy part,” Ahlberg said. “We support the user for whatever they want. Just call us, and we’ll handle it.”
As a full-service IT support, management and cybersecurity firm, Waident uses a “people-first, tech-second” mindset to solve any and all technology-related problems for their 150 clients and 3,500 end users.
The company has been listed on the Inc. 5000 two years in a row, this time coming in at No. 2,497 by recording 208% revenue growth during the past three years.
Business environment basics like predictability in taxing and governance also benefit business growth, the NDP’s Conners said. Just like Naperville did in the 1960s when the I-88 office corridor began to grow, the city still offers these benefits.
“Some of our legacy companies wanted to be here because the schools were so good and the community was so strong,” Conners said. “Those principles of Naperville haven’t changed.”
Growing by evolution
When the business now known as Blooming Color got its start in Naperville in 1988, the typical customer was a bride-to-be, who would work with a graphic designer to create a wedding invitation for printing, or a nonprofit marketing manager in need of printed brochures.
Now, President and Co-Owner Rosemarie Breske Garvey says, the typical customer is a “big tech” company such as Minted or Canva, which allows the brides and marketing managers of the world to easily generate designs online, then hire Blooming Color to print the finished product.
Until the mid-2010s, the company originally known as Minuteman Press was a commercial printer.
“That has sophisticated to being a tech-driven company that happens to manufacture print,” Breske Garvey said.
The company, now based in Lombard, still prints a lot of its “legacy commercial work” from hospitals and other large Naperville-area employers, Breske Garvey said. But the process happens with more automation, a snazzier HP Indigo brand printing press and a larger team.
“We’ve now doubled the size of the company in just those two years,” Breske Garvey said.
Revenues are up to $20 million, and the company landed itself at No. 4,528 on the Inc. 5000.
Real estate development evolving as well
Construction underway at Block 59.
The world of real estate also is evolving to meet customer needs. Brixmor Property Group is creating a new shopping destination at the site of a largely vacant one on the east side of Route 59 between Jefferson and Aurora avenues. The future site of restaurants and retailers including The Cheesecake Factory, Stan’s Donuts and Shake Shack, Block 59 will still be a shopping center. It’s just ditching the strip layout and creating a next-generation look and feel.
“It’s just an evolution of the retail industry,” said Brad Ratajczak, senior leasing representative with Brixmor Property Group — an evolution away from big-box retail and toward more curated destinations. “We made the investment to create a space that was desirable and needed in the market.”
Also still needed in the market is agriculture, the very business that grew Naperville up from its roots in the 1800s. Only now, what the agriculture industry needs is not only farmers, but also engineers.
Conners recently met with AGI in The Shuman building south of I-88, which impressed her with its positioning as an engineering hub for major agricultural companies. The company creates customized solutions for seed, fertilizer, grain, feed and food production across the world, including “those huge grain facilities,” Conners said.
“That’s what they design right there,” she said.
How entrepreneurs grow
One key ingredient to future business growth is entrepreneurship, Conners says. That’s why her organization plans to focus in 2025 on bringing entrepreneurs together, creating an “echo chamber” to help new and nimble businesses network and learn.
Companies that now are household names all started somewhere, Conners says, often in someone’s garage or basement. Supporting an environment with the right ingredients for innovation helps the next round of popular startups find their way.
“You have to pay attention to your entrepreneurial community,” Conners said, “in order to support growth for your economy moving forward.”
Photo courtesy: Waident Technology Solutions
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