North Kato Fall 2022 VOL 3 ISSUE 1

BY NATE BOOTSPHOTOS BY MICHELLE ISEBRAND PHOTOGRAPHY

Taking a tour through the Fun.com warehouse in Upper North Mankato can be a bit overwhelming because the place is huge. My tour guide, Tom Fallenstein, the Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Fun.com, knows where he’s going, though. He expertly navigates his way through the rows of towering shelving and boxes, weaving through the traffic of workers operating forklifts, other machinery or just their own two feet.

The place is filled, mostly, with costumes which Fun.com sells leading up to the magical annual date of October 31: Halloween. At one point, Fallenstein stops to show me one of the thousands of Halloween costumes hanging on a rack in see-through packaging. The example he has chosen, though, confounds. Multicolored but mostly purplish, it’s not easily identifiable. It’s smallish, roundish and clearly made to fit a child, but looks... well... not of this world. A less curious person might return the costume to the rack and choose a different one to show to a curious visitor. Fallenstein, though, is a man that likes to take a deeper dive and get into the “why” of things. He begins to inspect, close up, the different parts of the costume. There’s a headpiece attached in a different baggie and a label. Fallenstein scrutinizes it, reading closely.

“Ah,” he says at last. “It’s Saturn. You know, in case a kid, for some reason, tells his or her mom they want to dress up like Saturn.”

I chuckle and shake my head. I think back to a stage my daughter went through during elementary school, a phase where she was all about meteorology and weather, and the solar system. I say, “I know that kind of kid.”

The costume that I might’ve returned to the rack turns out to be a great example for Fallenstein because it’s the perfect illustration to prove that yes, they do have an amazing array of costumes in stock. They have about anything. They have group costumes, couple’s costumes, family costumes, baby costumes, and pet costumes. They have a costume for a body who might want to dress like Teddy Roosevelt, Tinker Bell, or Alice in Wonderland. They have Elvis and Elton John (in sequin baseball uniform) costumes. They have an inflatable centaur costume. And they have Saturn.

Pandemic Pressure When the COVID-19 pandemic first reared its ugly head stateside in the spring of 2020, ripple effects spread rapidly. Stock supplies flew off shelves as people began to shelter in place, socially distance and not just work from home but live from home. Workforces and educational systems learned—or didn’t learn—how to make things happen remotely. A giant and sweeping adaptation took place. Or didn’t.

For Tom Fallenstein and Fun.com, the pandemic happened to work out well. It was a decidedly

good piece of luck that Halloween, the holiday that Fallenstein’s Fun.com business centers around, wasn’t canceled like so many other traditional events that were precipitated upon gathering together. It was good because Fallenstein had taken a risk in keeping on his core staff instead of—as many companies felt forced to do—slimming his workforce and letting a lot of folks go. Fallenstein said that while Halloween 2020 wasn’t celebrated with the usual gusto, those who went ahead found Fun.com’s products readily available online. If you think about it, there may’ve never been a Halloween in recent memory when the act of donning a costume and pretending to be someone else might’ve felt so satisfying.

“Overall demand was down,” explains Fallenstein in reference to Halloween 2020. “We were on top of our supply chain, though. We didn’t let any of our staff go, so we were still full bore into planning and prepping. Customers were afraid to go to stores, so they moved online. We maybe just got more of a market share in 2020.”

As a result, says Fallenstein, the company had its best year ever in 2020. And in 2021, with demand back up for a more “normal” Halloween, the company grew another 40 percent and even acquired a new company. The company—called ELOPE, an acronym for Everyone Laughing On Planet Earth—was based out of Colorado and sold high-end hats and costume accessories.

“While everyone was worried, we were doubling down and investing,” says Fallenstein. “It was definitely a risky time, for sure. But everything worked out. In 2021 full demand was up everywhere.”

A Southern Minnesota Education and Connections Fallenstein grew up in Southern Minnesota in an entrepreneurial family. His parents owned a garbage and recycling business as well as a logging business. As a youngster, he says he got to observe business in action and try a variety of different activities that led him to his personal strengths. He was educated at Rapidan Elementary School, went to Vernon Center

for junior high, and then attended high school in Lake Crystal before heading to Minnesota State University-Mankato to study collegiately. There, where he earned a degree in Computer Science with a minor in Graphics, Fallenstein met a number of friends who would become workmates at Fun.com.

Mark Bietz, who has worked for eleven years at Fun.com and is the Chief Marketing Officer, is one of Fallenstein’s college buddies. They met through a common acquaintance at MSU and realized they had similar computer science-y interests such as marketing, Google, and SEO (that’s Search Engine Optimization for the less tech-savvy out there).

“Once in a while you could find us at a party on our laptops together, geeking out,” says Bietz. “We became fast friends.”

After college, Bietz worked in marketing and also had his own company before the two reconnected when Fallenstein asked Bietz to join him at Fun.com. Since then, their relationships—both work and non-work—have bloomed. Fallenstein repeatedly lauds the value of having a positive and thriving work culture, and Bietz echoes these sentiments. Bietz says that a lot of that, too, is a tribute to the quality of the community and culture in North Mankato and Mankato.

“Just being in North Mankato in general, we know it’s a great community,” says Bietz. “We’ve been able to find great people to work with. Not just high performers, but genuinely nice, kind, authentic people here in town. For sure, that’s been the number one reason for all of our success here. Fortunately, also, Tom is extremely good at building culture and team.

“It’s been amazing working with him. He is definitely one of the smartest guys I know, and somebody who has taught me a lot over the years. He goes against the grain because he’s a CEO and a leader who—I know it sounds cheesy—but he does truly care about his people. He’s put a lot of time and effort into our relationship and the relationships of the other people he works with. I’ve absolutely had a blast working with him, and I feel good about having him as my boss. I consider him a friend as well, obviously, so it’s not just a working relationship. We’ve become very close over the years.”

Surrounded by Trust Bietz is one of a number of talented individuals that Fallenstein has come to trust and delegate important work to within the company. Fallenstein supposes that his best quality in terms of what he brings to his business is his ability to make sense of data—to understand the “why” of the numbers. But Fallenstein, as the leader of such a large and growing company, also knows that his ability to judge people’s

aptitude and skill and then give them the appropriate responsibility—to “put talent in the right seat” as he says—has become a vital skill.

Fallenstein and his wife have a son and daughter and live in Upper North Mankato. Fallenstein enjoys spending time with them, and he appreciates his community. “I like the neighborhood I’m in,” he says. “And I like having a three-minute commute to work. The colleges here have been really helpful in us finding talent. We do a lot of training here.”

With all the growth, though, does Fallenstein ever consider moving to a larger area? Maybe. But, he says, a lot of his staff has settled into the area. And he enjoys having a local impact. “I can affect the community so much more,” he says. “A lot of people at the company are involved with collaborating with the Miracle League, Fallenstein Field, Big Brother, Big Sister, the Boys and Girls Club. It’s nice to impact the community. We like the community. There are just really good people here.” •