Startup.com

At the time of the dot.com boom, Kaleil Tuzman and Tom Herman start up their own internet company seeking to offer a platform to enable activities carried out at the local Government level, such as the payment of parking tickets, applying for licenses and so on. We join them at the very start of this journey as they gather funding, grow the employee base and begin developing their product and compete for business and investment. However, in business as in life, things do not always go to plan.

I was quite looking forward to this film, not least because it was one of the documentaries screened as part of the ten year anniversary of the BBC's Storyville stable – Storyville being known for the quality of the documentaries. Secondly I did also think the film sounded fascinating on many levels due to the subject matter but also the amount of access it had to the top people in the company throughout the entire process. I'll get to what I think of the film in a minute but firstly let stress that my focus will be what I thought of the film and NOT simply personal views on the people. Reading reviews here, I was surprised by the number that said little on the film but seemed to be reviewing Kaleil and Tom – several with opinions and insinuations that I personally would call offensive at best, racist at worst.

Many have commented on the way Kaleil and Tom delivered (or failed to deliver) their product but again the concern for me as a viewer is how the makers of the film have failed to deliver. I'm not sure where the failing occurred but how it appears is that they thought the battle had been won simply because of their great access and that simply being there would be enough to make this fascinating viewing. They are wrong. I'm sure it must have been tough to edit the film down from two years into this running time but it feels like all they have done is cut together bits that are important, without really packaging it together or helping the audience understand anything beyond what we are seeing. As a result it really fails to portray much of value in regards business or the dot.com era – hell, even the closing captions seem brief and disinterested.

Without a focus from the makers we are left to find our own and of course we end up on the individuals of Kaleil and Tom. This makes the film more of a fly-on-the-wall reality TV show, relying on personal tensions etc to drive the story forward; but you know what? It isn't that good. Both men are interesting to a point but neither individually or together do they justify a film to share this with the world. It is a shame because the film is not terrible by any means but without any sort of focus and a real lack of vision from the makers, we are left with very little of interest to work with and annoyingly it becomes increasingly apparent as you watch.

I think the greatest thing about this film is how it really shows the audience the future while the people in the film have no idea what is coming around the corner.

We get a real sense of what is to come early on when Tuzman comes back from a meeting trying to raise capital. He bitches about how he got ripped to shreds by one investor (you have no project experience etc... etc..). It's a very telling sign.

and it is amazing to watch how Tuzman was duplicated over and over again by several people who just threw money at a phenomenon without understanding it. It was an amazing thing to witness and Startup.Com captures it like nothing I have ever seen before.

Add in some dramatic moments, an office break in, a missing lawyer, a ruthless competitor, and a telling firing.. and startup.com is one documentary that will engage you.

Rating 8 out of 10

This is one of the most compelling and heart-wrenching films of the new millennium. The real-life struggle of two men trying to capitalize on the "Internet Boom" shows how mistaken everyone was that the Internet was the premiere way to get rich quickly and live happily ever after. But aside from the expose that formulating and operating an Internet business is far less glamorous than potential dollar signs would have one to believe, "Startup.com" is a perfect example of how the lure of riches and the good life can leave behind friendships made along the way; greed demoralizes oneself for the sake of material ownership that may ultimately cease and desist anyway. Filled with many subtleties and slight flourishes of (in)humanity, and telling signs of deteriorating personal relationships on the road to obtaining power and capital, this film contains far more juicy, resonating-with-truth moments than one could find (or even believe) in fiction. Perhaps most importantly, one realizes that with every little company with a numerical representation that he sees in the trade market one day that then disappears the next, there are real people like Kaleil and Tom whose lives are at stake and whom are suffering from the harsh reality that in the "real world," the American dream does not always come to fruition. Final Grade: A

I myself worked in one of the ubiquitous .com's in the late 90's and this movie is frightening realistic, from the long hours and technical glitches right down to the embarrassingly lame cheers.

I read on the web the filmmakers set out to document their friends impending wealth and business fortune with this documentary, but what they got was the complete opposite. I think that speaks volumes for expectations during this era.

I feel like some of the other IMDb reviews are off the mark. Yes, the movie is sometimes hard to follow. But it was shot in the Cinéma-vérité genre and that is to be expected. It is an uncompromising real life look, and it is up to the viewer to decipher; sometimes this works sometimes not. Some previous reviews wondered how the company folded. Honestly its a movie about an internet company, why do you think it failed? Having said this, I think more could have been shown of why Tom got the axe and the love relationships of Kaliel could have been better developed.

According to the DVD the producers cut some realistic (and boringly technical) scenes to focus more on the relationship between Tom and Kaleil. This is where they succeeded. They are trying to tell the story of the company downfall through the interplay of these two characters. It is fascinating because it is real. The most compelling part is the coorelation between their relationship eroding as does the company. Viewed from that point of view this movie is really not a documentary. Nevertheless it is entertaining and gripping. What amazed me was the unfettered greed and their enormous hubris which prevented them from acknowledge their role in this sinking ship.

Actually, to correct the plot outline above this movie does NOT "trace the birth and success...of new media company govWorks.com." Rather, it douments the rise and fall of a company whose fortunes seem to accurately reflect the demise of 1000s of similar dotcom start-ups. I saw the video on tape and not in a theater and thought the lack of art and panache in the news-like cinema verite photography was disappointing, but the story does deliver. The relationship between the protagonists--then antagonists--who founded and ran govWorks.com makes for compelling viewing and substantial response even weeks after the story-telling. The docu relies on the screen-filling charisma and intelligence of Kaleil Tuzman, CEO of the start-up company guarantees to drive the narrative. His former roommate Jehane Noujaim produced, directed and shot the feature doc with veteran Chris Hegedus, but it would not have been possible w/out Noujaim's access to the primary subject, Tuzman.

Interestingly, feature stories and reviews in the NY media describe Tuzmnan as both Hindu and as a "Latino Jew." It's exactly the type of detail missing in a doc that does not rely on narration to fill in the blanks.

On the whole, a solid, respectable fairly fulfilling though uninsightful piece of journalism.