User:Tomfallenstein
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| Tom Fallenstein | |
 Tom Fallenstein's picture take by Kris Kathmann for the January 2007 Connect Business Magazine Person or the Year 2007 Runner-up award. |
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| Born | December 4, 1980 (age 26) Mankato, Minnesota |
Tom Fallenstein is a American businessman and the head of Costumes Galore, a privately held mulitmillion dollar company in the halloween costumes and tuxedo business. Fallenstein grew up on a Mankato, Minnesota, and attended Minnesota State University, Mankato. His family started Costumes Galore in 1992 renting halloween costumes out of thier garage. When Fallenstein graduated college in 2004 he started selling costumes online. Costumes Galore a network of eight web sites all selling halloween costumes. Each of the first two years growth was 500%.
It started when Tom and his three sisters were children and their mother, Jenice Fallenstein, made their Halloween costumes. Those costumes were the envy of the other trick or treaters in their neighborhood. “My mom is a good seamstress, and every year she’d make us costumes,” Fallenstein remembers. “We always held on to them, because there was usually a younger kid who could wear it the next year.”
Eventually, the Fallenstein family ran out of “younger kids” to re-wear Jenice’s creations. But that didn’t diminish demand. As the three girls—Lisa, Heather and Julie—started college, they were besieged by requests to borrow the costumes. So, in 1992, they decided to try renting some out. All 20 of the costumes they arranged in the family garage were gone in a couple days. Each year they added more, sometimes sewing new outfits, sometimes buying them at trade shows. Their inventory doubled, then tripled, then multiplied exponentially. Eventually, they accumulated upwards of 1,500 rental costumes.
[edit] External links
- Connect Business Magazine - Article on Tom Fallenstein
- Costumes Galore - Online costume rental business owned by Tom Fallenstein
