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

I have friends who either work for or own a Dotcom company. So many fail, but they keep going at it. For those who make it, life can be sweet. It use to be a world where everyone can make it until the NASDAC fell apart.

This film by former MTVers, is a slick and glossy look at a rise and fall of a Dotcom company. We follow two high school buddies (Kaleil and Tom) from their coming up with a name and idea for their site to their breakup and demise. The emotions are all there, from elation to despair. You are there for everything. Though the film has no narration you can still tell what is going on if you pay attention.

This is an interesting piece of life in the late 20th century. You'll think about these guys the next time you go cruising through the internet. If you see it, rent it.

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

This is an excellent, compelling look into a time that seems so alien and so far away now. The days when there was so much money being invested into promises, and how the dot com bubble burst and took so much with it.

Even though we now know where the story ends, the documentary is gripping from start to finish. It charts the venture from the inception through to its demise, although it focuses more on the early stages. I was part of a dot com venture and it really brought back the memories of "everything is impossible, we are unstoppable" that was pushed by those that run the ventures. And in the case of govworks.com, the gorgeous and charismatic CEO even met Clinton. How could it all go wrong? The documentary also charts, in fact in particular charts, the effect of the company on the personal relationships of those involved. Some of the agonies they face are better than stories you see in scripted dramas, and because they are so real they are very involving.

It's a shame that the latter stage's of the company's demise are skipped over, we cut from them having over 200 employees to just 50 with no real explanation on what happened in between. Maybe it wasn't really required, maybe they didn't want to be filmed, but it felt like a bit of a hole. It's the only real complaint about the documentary however.

Overall it accomplished showing us the birth and death of a dot com very well, and how it affects those involved. And anyone who watches the documentary will probably like me go to www.govworks.com and with sadness see that the domain is owned by one of those companies that registers dead domains, and feel such a sadness that all that blood, sweat and tears ended this way.