Northern Lights - Issue 38 - September 2025
VENTURE NORTH CELEBRATES GRADUATING CLIENTS
by AMY LANE
Grocer’s Daughter Chocolate’s iconic bright green buildings have grown, too, expanding over the years to include a seasonal gelatería and rental housing next door.
In northern Michigan’s Benzie County, Christopher Varenhorst has built a business bringing high-speed internet and other services to rural areas that are lacking.
In neighboring Leelanau County, Jody Hayden’s 12-year journey owning Grocer’s Daughter Chocolate has created a confectionery enterprise with sweet offerings enjoyed locally and nationwide.
Two entrepreneurs, two businesses that have grown and prospered, aided at times with resources and capital from Venture North Funding & Development and now graduating, to other financial realms. It’s an evolution seen many times at Venture North, as the Community Development Financial Institution, or CDFI, supports entrepreneurs through various stages of their business growth.
“We have experienced multiple clients that needed our capital in a moment in time,” said Venture North President Laura Galbraith. “Venture North began lending after the economic recession; many small businesses needed assistance with down payments or collateral shortfalls. Thirty to 35 percent of our loans annually are for startup operations.
“We’ve definitely worked with many successful startups that after a few years need more capital than we can provide or they are really appealing to a community bank. Our goal is to build relationships with the business owner and bank they have their deposits with. Eventually they will graduate to that bank’s products and services.”
A Chocolate Superstar
One longstanding relationship is with Grocer’s Daughter Chocolate, which Hayden and husband DC bought in 2013 from a close friend. It was a small but special business with roots in supporting the community and an emphasis on premium product.
“I think the most important thing to me was to continue the legacy,” Hayden said.
She learned the business, updated the website and brought a passion for ethical sourcing and progressive business management while DC, a trained videographer, transferred his prowess to craft chocolate and gelato production.
What started for the two as a business with about 90 percent of its revenue from walk-in traffic, grew and diversified. It now has about 70 percent in-store sales and 30 percent online – with shipping throughout the country – and wholesale. Annual sales have gone from just under $200,000 to $1.2 million and an initial six-person staff is now 14 year-round, swelling to 28 in the summer and accompanied by numerous contractors that provide services to the business.
Cacao by Containers
Venture North support has included grants, valuable connections to people and resources, and loans for $190,000 and $144,500 that enabled Grocer’s Daughter to buy in bulk from Ecuadorian farms where Grocer’s Daughter sources most of its chocolate, purchasing container loads of chocolate inventory that traditional lenders said they would not fund. An additional $50,000 bridge loan enabled Hayden to secure cacao inventory as she awaited a $110,000 U.S. Small Business Administration loan.
Over the years, Grocer’s Daughter has been on the move, literally. In 2018, it relocated a half-mile north on M-22 to a building where the business promptly gained a 40 percent increase in sales. Then in 2019, Grocer’s Daughter purchased an adjacent hardware store and demolished it to create a public garden space with seating and a play area. And in 2020, on the business’ other side, came the purchase of a building that was converted into a gelato shop – opened in July 2022 – and a larger bakery, with the upper floor housing two one-bedroom rental apartments.
Grocer’s Daughter Chocolate’s Jody Hayden visiting cacao farmers in Ecuador.
Growing Destinations
The gelato shop has become a destination with its own following and customers, adding about $200,000 to Grocer’s Daughter’s annual sales in the three months of the year that it’s open. And this last summer came an additional use, housing a taco pop-up business in the evening that became a success for the Mexican family running it.
“They’re doing so well, we’re trying to find a way to see if there is a more permanent home for them,” Hayden said. “I started without a lot of resources, had so many people open doors for me along the way. There’s no number you can put on how wonderful it feels to help someone out, and pursue their own entrepreneurial dreams.”
It’s emblematic of her approach to Grocer’s Daughter: Supporting others, including community, employees, local ingredient purveyors and the Ecuadorian farms.
“So much of what Grocer’s Daughter means to me has nothing to do with money,” Hayden said. It’s “to be a good human in the world.”
Supporting Purposeful Intentions
Behind Grocer’s Daughter success and growth, is intention.
“It’s been a really fun journey,” Hayden said. “But I would say we’ve been very patient in the growth, and we’re purposefully trying to grow in a trajectory that we can keep our arms around it. We really do value being a part of the community and growing at a pace that isn’t too stressful on any of our team.”
That doesn’t mean, though, that new products aren’t frequently rolling out – they are. For example, in addition to the gelato that has become a summer mainstay and a top product across the entire business, there are seasonal flavors of truffles and recent new items like chocolate peanut butter pucks and toffee – both in either milk or dark chocolate.
“We look at…what are our customers currently buying that we know they love…and second, what are people asking for that we don’t have,” Hayden said.
Helping take the business into the future, is new guidance. About a year and a half ago, Jody and DC created a board of advisors that includes chocolate industry veterans and members of the consulting, financial, marketing and food science communities. They meet quarterly and “help us with our strategic plan, review our finances, help us stay on track,” Hayden said. “They’re helping me make good decisions.”
She said that as a business owner, it’s been important to ask for help and reach out to others in the business world for shared experiences and knowledge. Additionally, “knowing my numbers and really becoming more educated about balance sheets, cash flow” and other financial matters has been key, Hayden said, as has “talking to our staff, talking to our community and really listening to our gut, and not discounting that part.”
Showing Up to Help
Another contributor to success, Hayden said, is Venture North. “And not just a contributor, but regularly showing up and asking us what we need, championing us in various ways. In so many ways, Venture North has definitely been a partner to Grocer’s Daughter and I’m so grateful.”
In many cases, in addition to capital, Venture North helps businesses with the “building blocks of growth that will lead them to the graduation altar,” Galbraith said. That includes: Understanding business financials; development and use of financial systems so the business can have its financial position available when needed; a systematic process for evaluating products and margin improvements; and processes for meeting employee needs, including basic human resources practices.
“Jody is a superstar,” Galbraith said. “Always on the cutting edge with products and marketing as well as things like employee benefits and practices.” She has also “devoted a lot of effort to helping Venture North tell its stories through the media, conferences and special meetings,” and has formed mutually beneficial relationships with other Venture North clients.
The business has built up equity over the years and is now positioned to work with larger financial institutions for its needs.
“We can go to banks, we can shop loans,” Hayden said. “I think that Venture North helped us get there, and not only helped us get there, encouraged us to go and talk to more traditional lenders, because we were ready for it. They have been a springboard into more traditional, lower-cost lending.”
Even if she goes to a traditional lender, though, Hayden said she will still call Venture North for its knowledge of who she might approach. “So Venture North is still a resource, even if they are not the ones giving the financing.”
In a year filled with economic uncertainties and jolts – like a $26,500, 15 percent tariff on an arriving chocolate shipment – Hayden is looking for the business to continue to be stable and provide jobs, increasing wages even as she holds tight to other expenses. Major investments this year aren’t in store.
“Are we going to grow down the road, definitely,” Hayden said. “But we’re going to continue to do it in the way we have done it, which is to keep our arms around it and do it in a way that doesn’t compromise our values.”
Venture North can lend up to $350,000 and can provide flexible financing such as interest-only or seasonal payment terms. A business might move beyond Venture North if its credit needs are larger than $350,000; if it needs services that the CDFI does not provide, such as checking, savings, investment or lines of credit; or if its footprint grows significantly out of Venture North’s 10-county northwest Michigan region.
Such businesses typically have growth in line with their plans, including revenue, gross margins and employees. They may also have assets and inventory which cannot be supported or managed without a lender with greater growth financing, like revolving lines of credit for inventory.
“For the most part, graduating is a function of growth/size when a business goes beyond the limits of services that Venture North can provide,” Galbraith said. Until then, though, “we are a primary source of support for startup to small businesses that need our services because they are not provided by others.”
“It’s been a really fun journey…but I would say we’ve been very patient in the growth, and we’re purposefully trying to grow in a trajectory that we can keep our arms around it. ”
Jody Hayden, Grocer’s Daughter Chocolate
From Startup to Towers
One of those startups was Eclipse Communications, launched by Varenhorst some nine years ago with a mission and commitment to impact the quality of life and economic well-being of communities with no high-performance broadband service or few options. And, to provide information technology and services in partnership and alignment with business’ needs, producing tangible gains for clients while providing support and protection.
Varenhorst began the company with one employee – himself – and has grown it into a multifaceted sole-source provider of business and residential internet service, business and residential Voice over Internet Protocol phone service, managed business IT services, IT consulting and network engineering, and business and residential cybersecurity.
“Eclipse provides your internet service, we construct your network, we support your network, we provide managed IT services…we wear multiple hats,” Varenhorst said. “It’s been highly successful. What it really revolves down to is an accountable IT provider, a technical services provider, who provides great customer service and can actually find and fix the problem.”
A Limitless Supply of Work
The company’s footprint for internet service is Benzie and northern Manistee County, also touching Grand Traverse County, while phone and IT services extend farther.
Eclipse’s wireless network spans terrain via communications towers that use microwave radio links to deliver broadband signals. It’s a model that has helped the company expand through areas where the absence of population density or the prominence of hills, trees and other topographical features can create unique challenges and difficulties for other broadband technologies.
Eclipse Communications towers have enabled them to expand through more rural, less-populated areas in Benzie County.
Eclipse also has been laying miles of fiber-optic cable in Benzie County to provide fiber connections to businesses and homes in unserved and underserved areas – a move initially propelled by a 2019 memorandum of understanding, or MOU, with the Benzie County Economic Development Committee. The MOU signified a partnership toward expanding high-speed internet access in the county and designated Eclipse to help do so.
“It was a motive force, but it was not the only reason for this entire ability to plan, install and manage fiber fully inside of Eclipse,” Varenhorst said. “It was a path for us to walk…(and) move forward ourself,” building out fiber in the county.
He said Eclipse’s greatest growth has come in providing other services that synergize with internet service, offering converged technology solutions that are cost-effectively priced, add value, and positively impact and empower businesses.
“It’s been our biggest boon for growth. It’s the realization of what information technology as a whole is capable of,” Varenhorst said. “It has provided us with a limitless supply of work.”
Galbraith said “Chris is a workhorse who has built his business through 24/7 access for clients. As a result, his business has grown markedly and he is always looking to build his growth geographically in concentric circles around his core business.”
The company’s customer mix is 80 percent residential and 20 percent commercial and enterprise clients like larger business and government entities. Eclipse, with its expertise in installing fiber, also contracts with other local companies that need infrastructure services, like putting in underground water or electrical lines.
Growth by Reputation
Eclipse doesn’t advertise; it doesn’t need to, Varenhorst said. Clients have come by word of mouth, and reputation.
“Doing the good work and taking the high road, is what it comes down to. We always do the best we can. People recognize that, and they really like that,” he said. “Our growth and our success is energized by the incredible amount of demand that we get for all our services, all the time.”
Varenhorst began Eclipse after years of IT consulting and the 2010 co-founding, with a friend, SyncWave LLC, a wireless internet service provider in Scottville. Now, at Eclipse, he helms a million-dollar company with six employees and credits his team with “a great share of responsibility” for Eclipse’s success. There’s also been a high level of support from local business leaders and government officials, and Venture North, Varenhorst said.
“Eclipse wouldn’t be where it is right now…if it didn’t have the right people at the right time make their own mark on the company. The team, the people that have supported us, and a hard-core business ethic that is beyond reproach.”
Varenhorst recalls early-on, meeting with Galbraith and Venture North resource development and communications specialist Tim Ervin and getting sage advice as to what the entrepreneur needed to work on, from a business perspective. It was a “teachable moment that helped me take my own self-installed blinders off and see the wider picture. It was to think about strategically making business maneuvers, not just IT maneuvers,” Varenhorst said.
“Venture North has been there year after year providing that guidance and providing funding for our type of company that traditional funders couldn’t find a fit” to support, he said.
Eclipse Communications’ Chris Varenhorst with Venture North president, Laura Galbraith, who he credits with sage business guidance over the years.
Acquiring Growth
In 2019, Venture North provided an approximately $200,000 loan that paid for a majority of the acquisition of Arcadia-based M-22 Internet Project, a nearby internet service provider. The acquisition brought infrastructure and clients to the three-year-old Eclipse, helping it grow. Eclipse also received a grant from Venture North that helped pay for professional services, including an attorney and business consultant.
As he built his company, Varenhorst also tapped a Community Development Block Grant Loan Program managed in Benzie County by Venture North. The federally authorized program provides small-business loans for a variety of business purposes, tied to job creation.
Eclipse received an initial $70,000 CDBG loan that enabled it to purchase heavy equipment and build infrastructure, hiring two people. A second, $50,000 CDBG loan helped Eclipse to purchase additional equipment to build out its fiber network.
Stories of Success
Varenhorst is a vocal supporter of Venture North, always willing to volunteer for events where he can “tell his story to help inform and educate others about services we provide,” Galbraith said.
Nearly a decade into Eclipse – where Varenhorst said he has “one foot on cloud nine, my other foot in the trenches” – he counts knowledge, experience, and wisdom among gains as a businessperson. And empowerment.
“I know that I am going to dominate in everything that I am going to do,” he said.
And if needs present themselves, he’s ready to work with a larger financial institution – a prospect less daunting than it once was.
“I know who to ask and who to talk to in the next room, to achieve larger objectives which require larger sums of money,” Varenhorst said.
Galbraith said Venture North takes “an active role in introducing clients to some commercial lenders.” The CDFI has lending partners that have devoted resources to Venture North’s growth and that have demonstrated interest in Venture North clients as the businesses mature and needs evolve, she said.
Sad to see them go but happy for the wonderful growth of “graduates” like Grocer’s Daughter Chocolate, Venture North staff plan to keep in touch even if it means having to stop by the shop from time to time.
Enduring Friendship
Whether an active Venture North client or one who has transitioned to a larger lender, “we all win when small businesses grow and prosper,” she said.
Between Venture North and clients, close relationships form.
“We want clients to know that we are in their corner to support their success,” Galbraith said. “I believe our team develops great relationships with our clients and it is hard to let the lending relationship go. In most instances, the personal relationship does not end; our team shifts to more of an advisor or a connector to resources.”
Indeed, Varenhorst said that even as he explores larger financial institution options, he will still seek Venture North’s counsel.
“They will always be high up in my Rolodex of people to call immediately, should I have interest in moving forward in…those capacities,” he said.
Amy Lane is a veteran Michigan business reporter whose background includes work with Crain Communications Inc., Crain’s Detroit Business and serving as Capitol correspondent for nearly 25 years. Now a freelance reporter and journalist, Lane’s work has appeared in many publications including Traverse City Business News.
