Well, what is there to say about the documentary, Startup.com? Alot. The movie follows govworks.com, a company that was started during the .com boom, whose focus was to let people pay their traffic tickets and other state/federal fines online. The documentary starts off at the very beginning of the company's formation when Kaleil Tuzman quits his job at Goldman Sachs to start a company with his high school buddy, Tom Herman. Starting a business with a friend, what could go wrong? At first, not much at all. The company took off and raised 60 million dollars. But the company was built on bad programming practices and was not able to hold up at all when users tried to get online and use the system to pay their fines. As a result, the company is one of the most famous casualties of the .com bust. But the most important thing to focus on in the documentary is the relationship between Kaliel and Tom. While Kaliel had all the passion in the world, Tom was a guy with a family trying to make things work to do right by them. The documentary showcased the stresses of starting up your own company and what kind of strains it can put on the relationships of the people who are closest to you. The two partners eventually have a falling out before the company collapses and Tom is forced out of the company. And today Kaleil Tuzman is in jail for tax evasion. This documentary solidified for me the importance of knowing your role and staying in that lane.
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