Cheap Startup.com (DVD) (Kaleil Isaza Tuzman, Tom Herman) (Jehane Noujaim, Chris Hegedus) Price

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Customer Reviews of Startup.com

GovWorks is very representative of companies that were started in 1999-2000. It got funded well before it had any proven revenue model, and it generated a lot of buzz. The CEO made the cover of a number of magazines, and he even appeared on a panel with President Clinton, as shown in the documentary. However, they had not gone public prior to the crash in April 2000, so when they did not have a revenue model the company collapsed.

The documentary focuses primarily on two of the founders--Kaleil and Tom. They had been friends for over ten years prior to founding the company, and their relationship has ups and downs, culminating in Kaleil firing Tom.

Even if you have no interest in start-ups, the relationship between Kaleil and Tom is gripping. They are more dramatic than the "characters" in many fictional movies. These are real human beings, not superheroes or cardboard villains.

I think that the movie also is instructional. If you start a business, you have to be prepared for tremendous pressure, and you need to be able to deal with your partners under stress. When you watch the two protagonists start to come apart under pressure, don't think it couldn't happen to you.

Personally, for an Internet business, I have always favored the bootstrapping model over the venture-capital-funded model. I believe very strongly in spending time in front of customers as opposed to spending time in front of VC's.

I think this movie pretty clearly reinforces my position. GovWorks followed the VC script of trying to spend your way to success. The dismal results were fairly typical.

A Good Docudrama with Flawed Protagonists
Startup.com tells the story of Govworks, one of the many dotcoms that crashed and burned during the Internet boom and bust of the late 1990s. The story focuses on the company's two founders, Tom Herman and Kaleil Isaza Tuzman. (A third founder, Chieh, plays only a bit part; he is bought out by Tom and Kaleil halfway through the film.) Shot in reality TV fashion, this is more of a documentary than a movie.

Startup.com captures the major motifs of the dotbomb era. We have two entrepreneurs who are eager to charge forward with a poorly conceived business plan. Bootstrapping is of course out of the question; a reliance on other people's money (venture capital financing) is a foregone conclusion.

The scenes in the venture capitalist's office illustrate the poor planning behind so many of the initial dotcoms. Why didn't Govworks' investors ask more questions? Why couldn't anyone see that online access to government services is basically a commodity business which would soon be flooded with competitors (including governments themselves)? This film demonstrates why the early incarnation of the New Economy spawned so many failures.

At times the director of Startup.com does successfully portray Tom and Kaleil as heroic pioneers battling for a lost cause. Most of the time, however, they do not arouse much sympathy. Kaleil is a charismatic leader, but his overblown ego becomes grating by the end of the movie. Tom is too wishy-washy; throughout the story he is completely overshadowed by Kaleil. Ironically, Chieh was the only partner who escaped the Govworks implosion with anything tangible (the six-figure settlement from Kaleil and Tom.)

This movie shatters one of the key myths of the late 1990s: that New Economy managers were inherently more enlightened than their Old Economy forbears. Throughout Startup.com, Tom and Kaleil reveal their callousness toward their investors and their employees. One of the most telling moments occurs when Govworks is beginning to sputter. Tom assures Kaleil that everything will be alright even if the venture fails, because the two founders both have a comfortable lifestyle, and both of them will move on to good jobs. They seem to have no compunction about the venture capital money that they burned through, or the workers they displaced.

(Review by Edward Trimnell, author of "Why You Need a Foreign Language and How to Learn One" (2003) ISBN:1591133343)

Great Documentary
This documentary rocks. Great for budding entrepreneurs, and entertaining for just about anybody.