Megan VerHelst
Feature Editor

There were extra ghouls and goblins around this past Halloween. Thankfully, they were just for the north Iowa area's entertainment as a NIACC entrepreneurial student flexed her muscles at starting a small business.

Nineteen year old Krystle Eiklenborg, a NIACC entrepreneurial and business management student, started her first business this Halloween in the form of The Dragon's Eye, a haunted barn that was located near Hampton, Iowa.

Eiklenborg was first exposed to entrepreneurship in high school. She attended the summer camp NIACC holds for high school students interested in starting their own businesses. It was there she listened to everyone's stories about starting a small business and she said that what she heard she found really inspiring.

Tim Putnam, associate director of the Pappajohn Center at NIACC, said that he recalls Eiklenborg as a quiet girl, yet very attentive to what everyone had to say.

The idea first started to take shape in the fall semester of last year when Eiklenborg and her fellow entrepreneurial students entered a business plan competition. The idea came when Eiklenborg partnered with her mother, Kelly Reynolds to enter the competition.

"My mom has always been a Halloween fanatic and she gave that to me," Eiklenborg said. "The competition was around October and we were going around to all the haunted houses and were wondering what it would be like to run one."

Putnam said that he could tell Eiklenborg and her mother were seriously considering starting this business through the enthusiasm they showed in their presentation by giving it in Halloween costumes.

"You could see the motivation and determination they had," Putnam said. "They really wanted to make a name for themselves and you could see that through the presentation they gave." In an attempt to get her idea off the ground, Eiklenborg designed the business plan for her haunted barn.

Upon entering it in the business plan competition, the idea took off from there and was in the makings for the last year.

According to Eiklenborg, she got all the details down and networked with other people who had started haunted houses, making the process easier.

"The idea with the haunted barn is based around a legend," Eiklenborg said.

According to Eiklenborg, the legend is based in medieval times.

There were five evil dragons ruining the town. A wizard decided that he wanted the dragons killed because of this, so he sent another man in to slay the dragons.

The man sent to slay them then locked the dragons in a dungeon. The way to do this was to put one of their eyes above the door and that would lock the dragons in for eternity.

From this legend, the business' name, The Dragon's Eye haunted barn, emerged.

"All of the things we needed were already on our farm," Eiklenborg said. "So this year, we moved the eyeball and let people go through the dungeon."

The scenes and sets of the haunted barn were built around the legend and scenarios in the story.

This past Halloween marked the grand opening of The Dragon's Eye and a major milestone in Eiklenborg's entrepreneurial career.

"We had a very successful first year," Eiklenborg said. She was expecting 2,000 people at the barn's maximum potential but was extremely satisfied with the 1,700 they drew in.

"We were surprised that many people came because we were out in the middle of nowhere," Eiklenborg said.

According to Eiklenborg, she was in charge of getting sponsors, promoting and advertising the business.

She also said that she couldn't have done it without the help of others.

"My mom was the financial sponsor," Eiklenborg said. "I was going to school and had a full-time job, so she did a lot of the planning and building."

Eiklenborg also said that she credits NIACC with helping them get everything started with the main business plan.

As far as feedback from people who attended the haunted barn, there are examples that speak for themselves.

"We had one girl who peed her pants," Eiklenborg said. "We had to confirm it because we were hearing it, so we went down to see and she really had peed her pants."

Eiklenborg also said that they had compliments on how much more high tech her haunted barn was compared to other haunted houses.

"In a year's time, she's (Eiklenborg) went through the whole entrepreneurial cycle," Putnam said. "She jumped the gap from having the idea to actually doing something with it. Not many people do that."

Now that her first business venture has proven successful, The Dragon's Eye already has posted a schedule of times they will be open next Halloween on their website:

www.dragons-eye.com.

"I never realized how hard it is, even to put together a five-day event like this," Eiklenborg said, about starting her first business. Eiklenborg also has hopes of starting other businesses in the future.

"My big plan is to start a hotel," Eiklenborg said. "I have smaller ideas, but that is my big goal for now."