When the COVID-19 pandemic set in five years ago, businesses faced unprecedented circumstances. Under government stay-at-home orders, some unexpectedly shifted to virtual services. For others, revenues plummeted and they scrambled to help employees.
Businesses pivoted constantly. Companies rode relentless waves of rapid change, as illustrated in these snapshots of three Chicago area companies: a pet sitting company, psychotherapy practice and a health information startup.
The challenges are far from over. In a national survey released last week, 35% of small business owners rank revenue as their biggest challenge for the first quarter of 2025 — the highest percentage in four years. And only 29% of owners are positive about the country’s economic health and 37% are positive about their local economy’s health, according to MetLife & the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s small business index that surveys 750 small businesses.
“Confidence is being shaken as small businesses increasingly worry about their revenue while at the same time confronting the possibility that tariffs will raise costs for them and their employees,” said Tom Sullivan, vice president of small business policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “Uncertainty continues to be a wet blanket on small business growth.”
Chicago Pet Sitters
Chicago Pet Sitters, launched in 2005, offers dog walking and pet sitting for cats and other creatures across the city. The pandemic shutdown was a huge blow to Chicago Pet Sitters after people were abruptly ordered to stay at home.
“We lost about two-thirds of our daily dog walking clients over the course of a couple of hours on March 12, 2020,” CEO Dan Moranville said. Many workplaces told employees not to come in a week before Illinois mandated lockdowns, he said.
To help its suddenly out-of-work employees, Chicago Pet Sitters set up a campaign that raised about $15,000 from clients and others. “Our clients were incredible during this time,” Moranville said.
Most of 2020 was “extraordinarily quiet,” but the company shifted to more cat sitting in addition to dog walking. Business started to rebound in 2021 then boomed in 2022. Many clients took trips spanning 14 to 20 days in 2022. That “revenge travel” boom has since settled down, said Moranville.
These days, demand for pet care tracks with vacation and holiday times such as spring break, summer, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years. Demand for Monday to Friday dog walking has significantly decreased as people continue to work from home or on hybrid schedules, he said. But Chicago Pet Sitters still sees lots of demand for dog walking two to three times per week, as well as cat care when clients travel.
Some people working from home still want midday dog walks. “Clients want more flexibility in their schedules now,” said Moranville.
The company has 22 to 28 employees — the same as before COVID-19. Even though demand for pet care has returned, its revenue is still about 60% to 65% of pre-pandemic levels due to clients’ remote and hybrid work schedules.
Couch Clarity
Mental health practice Couch Clarity was founded in 2012 and has offices in Elmhurst and Glen Ellyn. The company offers psychotherapy for individuals, couples and families, as well as group workshops and walk and talk therapy.
During the pandemic, it started telehealth for the first time; before 2020, virtual therapy in Illinois was not allowed by law, said Melissa Bercier, Couch Clarity’s founder. After COVID-19 restrictions were lifted, Couch Clarity gradually shifted back to in-person sessions, which “are more effective for many of our clients,” said Bercier, a therapist and divorce coach. Now, 85% of its sessions are in-person.
Demand for therapy services at Couch Clarity significantly increased during the pandemic, said Bercier. Its clients are diverse, ranging from young children struggling with socialization to teens and young adults coping with missed milestones, as well as couples navigating the stress of work-from-home dynamics. When restrictions were lifted, some children refused to go to school because they did not want to leave home or their parents, she said.
Overall, mental health challenges, including anxiety and depression, have reached new levels, said Bercier, who has been a practicing therapist for more than 29 years.
During the pandemic, more and larger health care organizations began offering mental health services and the market has become more competitive, said Bercier. Insurance reimbursements have remained stagnant over the years. Couch Clarity is trying to increase revenue by offering new services such as employer-based therapy services and polyvagal yoga, which focuses on the vagal nerve and nervous system through breathing and other techniques.
Bercier hopes insurance companies will reimburse more for services because they end up paying mental health workers low hourly rates. She said it’s common for therapists to work two jobs or rely on a partner. “It is mind boggling how mental health workers seem to be so valued in the public eye, yet we are paid pennies compared to other types of health care workers,” she said.
Couch Clarity has 17 employees, including Bercier, compared to 14 before the pandemic. But 2024 revenue was slightly lower compared to 2021. People focused on self-care during the pandemic and had flexible schedules that made therapy accessible. Now, people have less time or their priorities may have shifted and there’s more competition, said Bercier.
Tell Health
Nikola Nestorov and Dr. Alan Gaffney incorporated Tell Health, a health information startup, in 2019. Because of the rampant spread of COVID-19 misinformation during the pandemic, the Chicago-based company’s goal of disseminating information from medical experts seemed timely. Gaffney is an intensive care physician, and Nestorov is an IT engineer by background.
Tell was initially a social media platform similar to X, but only verified clinical experts could post content such as text or video. When its online platform went live in January 2023, COVID-19 and long COVID-19 were its core discussion topics.
But by mid‑2023 interest in the virus had rapidly declined, said Nestorov. Tell shifted to more generic topics including weight loss and pain management before focusing on women’s health, such as endometriosis, and other medical issues like liver disease.
However, growing a new social media platform and competing against tech behemoths is difficult. So in 2024, Tell pivoted to offer webinars with doctors; 20 people can attend at a price of $100 per person per session. Yet the founders realized the company’s reach was limited.
Now, Tell is using artificial intelligence to create a “digital doctor” trained by their existing and ongoing webinars with medical experts. It expects to launch a prototype in June and hopes to reach a bigger audience. Meanwhile, Tell was accepted to Nvidia Inception, an accelerator with the tech giant in February.
The co-founders started the company with $1.8 million in seed money from friends, family and others. But funding dried up after 2023, when high interest rates slowed down the economy. It now has three employees, compared to about 12 in 2022.
Tell was hatched at Matter, the medical startup incubator housed in The Merchandise Mart, and is still a member there. The startup is proud to be based in Chicago, but raising funds for an AI product is difficult in the Midwest, said Nestorov. There is more investor interest in AI in Silicon Valley so Gaffney is traveling there to raise fresh funding.
Tell hopes to raise $1 million “to expand our topics, host live Q&A webinars for over 1,000 participants, continue building up our AI engine and grow our audience,” said Nestorov.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
