A Fast-Growth Time Capsule

PUBLISHED JULY 2025

The Corporate Report 100 ranking of the KC area’s fastest-growing companies began in 1986, just a few years after I started working with a great friend, then and now—Mike Rainen at Rainen Business Interiors. RBI had a long-term contract with this magazine, then known as Corporate Report, for the advertising position on the back cover. And no one worked better with vendors and co-op support than Mike did to fund RBI ads promoting the firm.

It wasn’t trained or implied; it might just have been pure instinct on my part, but whenever I’d see a copy of the magazine on a corporate coffee table or in the lobby,  I would flip it over so our Rainen Business Interiors ad was visible to all. Truth be told, I may have done this 10,000 times—back in the days when sales professionals really pounded the pavement.

Concurrent with starting to work at Rainen Business Interiors, I started a company with my brother John called Corporate Care, a landscape-construction and lawn-maintenance business that focused on serving property-management companies and commercial property owners. Eventually, I had to talk with Mike and let him know that I needed to go full-time with that venture, which was growing in excess of 200 percent each year with revenues surpassing $4 million.

Mind you, this was fifteen years before Michelle and I acquired Ingram’s Magazine. Had I known about the Corporate Report 100, back then, I’m confident that Corporate Care would have enjoyed Top 10 placements in several of those years. So we’re familiar with fast growth and managing it, or at least running with it.    

Hitting the Big Four-O

Which brings us to this year’s CR100, the magazine’s 40th installment of what has grown to become one of our most popular business-recognition programs every year. Our team is honored to have overseen this competition for 29 of its 40 years, and many companies recognized here jump at the opportunity to advertise, letting the broader business community know that they have arrived and more about their products and services.

Like the companies recognized over the years, the Corporate Report 100 process had undergone some changes of its own. Not many original copies of the first CR100 issue are still in circulation, but skimming through our archives here yielded some interesting observations.

For one, the magazine didn’t apply the same rigor to the process that it does today. In the absence of a minimum-revenue requirement for baseline-year calculations back then, some outlandish growth percentages made their way into print: Well into five figures, in some cases. 

That doesn’t mean this region was awash in companies with eye-watering growth; rather, some firms were reporting Year One revenues of as little as four figures, usually because they started bringing money in the door in December. Setting the $200,000 floor for consideration ensured that we were considering more stable firms with established enterprises.

Some years back, we partnered with Meara Welch Browne to standardize the process and ensure companies were being assessed apples to apples. 

We also modified it to require  revenue generation in every quarter throughout the year. Then we added additional verification of figures submitted by the top companies. Sadly, we have found that some were willing to stretch the truth just to claim fast-growth status with the Corporate Report or Ingram’s imprimatur.

We also began measuring everyone based on financials compiled through accrual accounting, rather than cash-basis companies. MWB made a compelling argument that true growth was better reflected through accruals.

Inflation may dictate a further revision of the baselines. We’ve maintained a minimum of $200,000 in the first year of each reporting cycle, and the minimum of $1 million in the final year. We haven’t made that call yet, but raising those is worth considering. If you look at the companies involved over the life of the CR100, anyone at $1 million in revenues today is, in real dollars, considerably smaller than companies being recognized at that threshold 20 years ago. Still thinking that one over.

What 2025 Showed Us

Whether some superstars of growth were simply too shy to step up, or whether it’s a reflection of current economic trends, we didn’t see the eye-popping growth numbers at the top of  the 2025 CR100 this year. It’s been some years now since our No. 1 company came in at less than four-figure growth; last year, four of them beat 1,000 percent. This year, only one even flirted with that mark. 

What will 2026 bring? We’re excited to find out. If your company is killing it, make a mental note now to submit for CR100 when your books close on 2025. 

Until then, keep the growth going, Kansas City.