Bootstrapping to $55 Million from Rural Minnesota: Tom Fallenstein, CEO of Fun.com (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: Besides fun.com, have you done anything else in the last 18 months that is worth discussing?

Tom Fallenstein: We spend most of our time and money on our internal culture and infrastructure. We put in a million dollar automation system to help put out 35,000 orders in a single day. That’s where a lot of our money and time is going—making sure that we can fulfill all the customer orders that come through and that we have the fastest shipping and best customer experience.

Sramana Mitra: How many people are there in the company now?

Tom Fallenstein: We’ve got 130 full-time staff and we bring on 1,400 for September to October.

Sramana Mitra: This is all Minnesota, right?

Tom Fallenstein: Right.

Sramana Mitra: You own the company 100%?

Tom Fallenstein: Me and my family do.

Sramana Mitra: What do you want to do with it? Is it something that you want to keep in the family or would you like to eventually sell it? What drives you?

Tom Fallenstein: What drives me personally is how many people I can affect, watching the business grow, and creating a fun culture where I can create jobs so that people are really passionate about what they do. They love coming to work and also pass that on to our customers. Being able to create unique custom products that nobody else does. I’m looking at how I can touch the lives of a billion people whether it’s as small as making them smile to truly changing their lives. Ultimately, I want to see the company become a billion dollar company where we’re able to fulfill billions of orders and affect that many people as well as create tons of jobs that are very unique. I don’t know if that involves taking a company public or keeping it private. I think whatever helps me get to that goal the fastest is probably the decision to make.

Sramana Mitra: Do you need financing?

Tom Fallenstein: Our finances are pretty clean. When we ended the year, we actually ended debt-free. A lot of that is due to how the costume industry lets us bank roll our inventory. They help us bring in a whole bunch of inventory and then we pay for it in November. They definitely help us grow a lot faster. Our cash flow is pretty good.

This segment is part 6 in the series : Bootstrapping to $55 Million from Rural Minnesota: Tom Fallenstein, CEO of Fun.com
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