Startup.com Summary

Startup.com Summary

This interesting documentary tracks the rise and fall of govWorks.com from May 1999 to December 2000, and the challenges this business brings to the relationship of two best friends. Kaleil Isaza Tuzman and Tom Herman are friends from high school; they have an idea of creating a Web site for people to conduct business with local governments. Kaleil raises the money by pitching the dream to venture capitalists. Kaleil becomes CEO and Tom performs the function of technical chief. Venture capital comes in by the millions. They make their dream a reality by opening Govworks.com, a Web-based firm devoted to helping people deal more efficiently with local governments. The web business begins with facilitating payment of parking tickets online.

As it was a unique business opportunity at that time, Govworks.com expanded rapidly, going from a one-room office with a small staff to over 200 employees and a bankroll of 50 million within a few months. Kaleil is soon on TV and magazine covers, he has the right combination of salesmanship and leadership that makes a company flourish. He even slips a business card to President Clinton. He motivates his team with little pump-up rituals. Kaleil’s partner Tom is a family man with a daughter. His daughter needs constant attention, which makes it difficult for him to work in the weekends. A third partner wants a buyout at the initial stages and walks out with good chunk of Money. Competition catches up with them quite quickly and the company is always in need of cash for improving the site to compete with other firms.

Tom’s gentle nature clashes with Kaleil's all-business approach; they lock horns as Tom wants to be a CO-CEO. Eventually Tom gets forced out of the company that he helped to start, by his long-time friend. Like many other Internet firms of the year 2000, Govworks.com did not succeed, by January 2001, the company had let nearly all of its employees go, and was eventually acquired by a larger firm. Tom and Kaleil realize the perils of going into business with their friends as they observe the rise and fall of their internet firm over the course of its first and only year.

"Startup.com" tells an amazing story of rapid rise and fall of dotcoms of that period but skips on minor details. We keep wondering how the millions got spent within that short period of Time. This documentary also leaves a few holes in the personal stories of the characters which make us wonder of their personal lives. On the whole it is an educational and entertaining documentary which will be useful for future entrepreneurs.