| Starup.com documents the life and
times of an Internet startup over a two-year period. This movie
is unique in that it captures both ends of the dot-com phenomenon,
from the inception of the company in late 1998, when the dot-com
boom was still peaking, to the eventual demise of the company
at the end of 2000 following the market crash. What make this
movie special however is that it does not focus so much on the
business as on the people involved, in this case the two co-founders
Kaleil Isaza Tuzman and Tom Herman.
Friends from high school, both dreamed of cashing in on
the Internet boom and played around with many ideas for a
business. When they come up with the idea to start an Internet
company where people could pay their parking ticket or renew
their driver’s license online (for a small fee) instead of
having to wait in line, they decide to go for it. Tuzman,
the suave Wall Street one, leaves his job at Goldman Sachs,
and Herman, the earnest geeky one, leaves his job at technical
consulting firm Sapient to start their own money-making machine.
At first the two make a good team, balancing each other’s
strengths and weaknesses as the company struggles to raise
its first round of venture capital and launch the actual site
from its offices in New York City. Even when there are disagreements,
the pair discuss things openly, confident in their friendship.
But eventually the company outgrows them, and the camera unflinchingly
captures the moment when business and profit is finally put
above friendship.
Those interested in the business aspects of the story will
not be disappointed, and may be surprised to see how key events
sometimes transpire. For instance, we watch Kaleil polling
people in a food court to help decide the name of the company
(“Would you rather invest in a company called govWorks.com
or NexTown.com?). We also watch Kaleil and Tom biting their
nails when they are given only one hour to decide whether
to sign the papers that will get them $17 million in funding
but are unable to reach their lawyer to help check the fine
print.
Starup.com is so interesting in fact that it leads
me to the only problem I had with this documentary—in the
process of getting the movie to a picture-perfect 90-minutes,
the filmmakers did not give enough time to Kaleil and Tom’s
other personal and work relationships. I would rather have
not met Kaleil’s girlfriend or Tom’s rival at work than be
left wanting to know more about how they were affected as
well.
Overall, Starup.com is a timely and interesting look
inside an era that seems to have already become the past.
— Sandhya Shardanand
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