Review: Startup.com DVD
Tagline: "The rise and fall of the American dream."
Length: 107 minutesMPAA Rating: R for language
Startup.com is an absorbing documentary about two high school friends who in their late twenties go into an Internet business together. The company they start raises sixty million dollars and grows to 233 employees before taking a nosedive. The film was so successful at getting me to empathize with the two young entrepreneurs that I felt elated by their early triumphs and saddened when their dreams fell apart.
Startup.com centers around Kaleil Isaza Tuzman and Tom Herman. Kaleil and Tom are bright, personable, energetic young men who decide to build a business together. Their vision is that their company will use the Internet to facilitate transactions between local governments and citizens. With Kaleil providing the business savvy and Tom supplying the technical expertise, the two friends hope to have fun working together, and maybe they’ll get rich and do something worthwhile at the same time. Ah, youthful optimism! It’s probably just as well they can’t see the rocky road that lies ahead of them.
Early in the documentary we see Kaleil as he finishes his last day at work at Goldman Sachs investment bankers. Next we see Tom at home brushing his daughter’s hair. Then it’s May, 1999, and we’re shown an office inside a building in a part of New York City known as Silicon Alley. As Kaleil puts his accouterments into his new desk, Tom announces to the fledgling company’s eight employees that Kaleil will now be full-time and will be C.E.O. Even the name of the new company hasn’t been decided yet, and NexTown and UntoCaesar.com are considered before settling on govWorks.com. For the next year, Kaleil and Tom will routinely work 18-hour days.
Much of the earlier part of the film is taken up by the company’s search for capital, and it’s very exciting because Kaleil is nothing short of awesome in his ability to get money from the venture capitalists (VCs). Meanwhile, the company is adding employees, and Tom struggles with the unglamorous task of directing the development of software that will do everything that Kaleil wants it to do. Also, the VCs impose additional requirements on govWorks.com, and Kaleil and Tom begin to see some of the prices that they’re going to have to pay if their dream is to come true.
Even as Kaleil and Tom get their pictures in magazines and Kaleil appears on a C-SPAN television program with U.S. President Clinton, the company’s troubles continue to mount. Kaleil and Tom have to buy out a third founder who apparently decides the venture is simply too risky, and then there’s a burglary at the office that looks like industrial espionage. Furthermore, a competitor called EzGov has developed a product that is in some ways better than that of govWorks.com. When the Internet bubble bursts in the spring of 2000, venture capital dries up, and Kaleil takes the shocking step of firing his old friend Tom!
As the drama of govWorks.com unfolds, the documentary gives us a glimpse into the personal lives of Kaleil and Tom as well. We briefly meet Kaleil’s mom, and we get to see three of his girlfriends. We’re not surprised that he has trouble making a romantic relationship last since all his time and energy are consumed by the company. As for Tom, we get to know his parents a little, and also his daughter. I’m very impressed that Tom refused to work weekends so he could spend the time with his daughter, but there’s not much doubt that this was not good for the company.
Startup.com goes on to tell a little more about what happened to govWorks.com, and the documentary makes it look as though things got very ugly as the company failed and its remnants were bought on January 1, 2001, by another company. (I think the buyer was eONE Global.) But what about Kaleil and Tom, the two young men we’ve grown to care so much about? Well, I think I’ll just let you see the documentary for yourself to find out the answer to that question.
Startup.com was made by Chris Hegedus, who previously made the splendid documentary The War Room, and Jehane Noujaim, who was Kaleil’s roommate. If you have access to Startup.com on DVD, don’t fail to watch the documentary a second time, listening to the fascinating audio commentary of Ms. Hegedus and Ms. Noujaim. These intrepid documentarians had to spend a year of 18-hour days themselves with Kaleil and Tom to get hundreds of hours of footage, which they then had to figure out how to edit into a length acceptable to audiences. I think they succeeded brilliantly in creating a very emotional experience, and I found Startup.com to be one of the most compelling films I’ve ever seen.
Selected Special Features on the DVD:
