E.C. - Startup.com Documentary

The documentary for Startup.com was a movie we watched near the beginning of the quarter. It featured 3 guys who were high school buddies and entered the business world together to try to make a new company during the explosive growth of the first years of the WWW. Very early on in the film the 3^rd high school friend, Ki, got his cut of the profits ($700,000) after doing his part of the work and cut loose from the company since he had qualms about taking it further on. The two remaining friends, Tom and Kaleil, stayed in the company and continued to build it. The company purpose was that anything done through the government can be done online. Such things like paying parking tickets.

The two friends had a lot of difficulty finding companies willing to invest their confidence and money in their efforts and it started to take effect in their friendship. Unfortunately, Tom and Kaleil’s personal values were very different and became relevant over the course of the year. Tom valued family, while Kaleil seemed to value success more. Kaleil’s girlfriend left him because of this.

The main competition for their company, ezgov.com, showed no worry after taking a look at Tom and Kaleil’s company, and the reason became very heart wrenching later on. Website testing unveiled glitches as the due date for the site was vast approaching and this was freaking out Kaleil. Around that time someone also broke into his office and stole his computer, which had important company data on it. On Friday the 14^th the stock market crashed and one immediate concern was that the number of employees for their company dwindled. This was an issue since back in January they had 120 employees, which rose to 200 in April after the crash. Increasing the number of employees under the current circumstances was probably the wrong move at this point.

Tom and Kaleil were having greater difficulties with Tom ending up being terminated from the company in May 28^th of 2000. They friendship had taken a damaging blow, though Kaleil stayed with the company. Six months later the company had a mere 50 employees and not long after it completely failed in comparison to ezgov.com which had a superior website. This company of theirs was only one of the many companies to rise and fall during these years taking into consideration the economy change. Watching the change in the two’s relationship over a course of months really cemented the concept to me that life can bring you down and ruin friendships no matter how close they may be. Friendships can be tight, but business can be unforgiving.