Customer: Willow River Company    
Location: Hudson, WI
Service Focus: Landscape design/build, tree installation, irrigation, mowing, turf care, snow removal, tree care
Annual Revenue: ~$16 million    
Team Size: 130 employees

Jim Shimon didn’t start Willow River Company with a business plan. He started it with a truck, his brothers, and a talent for creating beautiful outdoor spaces. In 2009, Jim and his two brothers launched the company out of Minnesota, with Jim running one crew, his brother running another, and their youngest managing a small tree farm. The work they put out was good. The business behind it wasn’t keeping up.

Without any estimating software or job costing, the Shimons were flying blind. They used rough square-foot prices for hardscaping, guessed at margins, and consistently came in as the lowest bidder. Some jobs made money; some didn’t. Most of the time, they couldn’t tell the difference.

The wake-up call came at a grocery store. Jim and his wife, newly married, were standing in the checkout line when the card was declined. “We were using the company as our personal bank account,” he recalls. “We were working way too hard to have this volatility in our lives.”

That winter, Jim started digging. Through local industry events and YouTube videos, he found LMN, built specifically for landscape operators. The videos started clicking things into place.

What resonated most wasn’t the software itself. It was the concept it introduced him to: overhead recovery. The idea that every dollar a customer pays has to carry its share of the costs they don’t directly see: the equipment, the insurance, the office, the time. For the first time, Jim understood what it actually cost to run a landscaping company and how to price work to account for it.

Willow River went from roughly $150,000 in gross revenue in 2013, to $1 million the following year after adopting LMN. The growth didn’t come from luck. It came from finally being able to bid with confidence. Increased pricing meant they didn’t win every job, and for the first time, that was okay.

LMN gave them a budget, an estimating tool, a CRM, and job costing, all under one roof. As owner-operators, the speed mattered as much as the functionality. “You barely have enough time to answer the phone for the next lead, let alone understand your numbers,” Jim says. “LMN made it so we could still be owner-operators and get our numbers so much faster.”

Today Willow River runs 12 landscape crews, 3 tree install crews, 3 irrigation crews, 10 mow crews, 7 turf crews, and 2 general tree care crews. On any given day, 25 to 30 crews are rolling out, supported by 130 employees. Revenue this year is on track to hit $16 million. In 2025 alone, Willow River completed five acquisitions, folding each company into LMN without missing a beat. “The onboarding for new people is super fast, super easy,” Jim says.

LMN has grown alongside them the whole way. When newer platforms emerged, Jim and his team evaluated the alternatives and kept coming back to LMN. “You go deep with other platforms and it’s like, no, LMN is exactly what we need,” he says. “Budgeting, estimating, job costing, invoicing, all in one program. What LMN provides makes you look really good. It gives you the platform to grow your business without a ton of hassle.”

He still pushes LMN to every landscaper he meets. “It’s a no-brainer,” he says simply.