Has anyone seen the documentary "Startup.com" ?

[ralphT]

[url]http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/[/URL]

So I watched this last night and was quite disappointed. For those that haven't seen it, its about a few guys in their mid 20's that leave their slowlane jobs at goldman sachs to work full time on an internet company in 2001 during the time that all the other big players started coming up. Their product was a web site that allowed users to take care of local government services like paying parking tickets, applying for permits, etc...

The reason I was disappointed is because they were on the same roadmap as me (internet/apps/software) and the way the lifestyle and process was depicted really turned me off. The founders were very hard workers, but seemed to focus most of their efforts on dealing with investors, making sure they dressed professionally, and almost entirely avoided the product and its value all together. Not sure if this was due to their background, or the general focus of the film, but it certainly isn't what I envisioned when it comes to being the founder of a business like theirs. I also feel like the air was different back in those times, and now the industry has shifted towards a modern approach of having an internet startup (traditional corporate settings are now passé)

I guess I started this thread to discuss what others with similar backgrounds and views tend to think of this.

 

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[harerace]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/

So I watched this last night and was quite disappointed. For those that haven't seen it, its about a few guys in their mid 20's that leave their slowlane jobs at goldman sachs to work full time on an internet company in 2001 during the time that all the other big players started coming up. Their product was a web site that allowed users to take care of local government services like paying parking tickets, applying for permits, etc...

The reason I was disappointed is because they were on the same roadmap as me (internet/apps/software) and the way the lifestyle and process was depicted really turned me off. The founders were very hard workers, but seemed to focus most of their efforts on dealing with investors, making sure they dressed professionally, and almost entirely avoided the product and its value all together. Not sure if this was due to their background, or the general focus of the film, but it certainly isn't what I envisioned when it comes to being the founder of a business like theirs. I also feel like the air was different back in those times, and now the industry has shifted towards a modern approach of having an internet startup (traditional corporate settings are now passé)

I guess I started this thread to discuss what others with similar backgrounds and views tend to think of this.

I've seen this a lot. Some people are more focused on raising the capital instead of building the actual product. Thanks for giving me the heads up. I might watch it to see if there's any information I could pull from it.

 

[OzGrinder]

I quite enjoyed the film. More for it's entertainment value. It's more a doco on people and their behavior during the full startup to bust cycle than it is about business. I particularly like the interview with the ex-GF talking about how they are a bunch of boys running around in suits playing at business, that's exactly how the whole thing came across.

I found it amusing how much time they spent 'selling' to investors, rather than to paying customers, but that might have just been editing and what the film creators chose to focus on. I'd be surprised if there isn't an older thread on this forum discussing this doco, haven't searched though. All in all it's interesting viewing for anyone interested in the .com culture and the tech boom/bust in the early 2000's.

 

[Bowden]

I've watched it a few times. Both of the main guys went on to start successful companies in other industries after the bust.

 

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[CommonCents]

Raising capital for a startup IS a full time job.

 

[DeletedUser2]

couple things.
I was around in those days. you didnt have word press. you didnt have super cheap coders in india. it was all ground up coding./and building towards and IDEA.
ALSO, SEO didnt exist yet, you HAD to buy traffic to get people to the site. you HAD to pay to break new grounds. buying eyeballs, was the only model then. the idea was get enough users, you could monetize later.
They did work on the product, and that took money to build, and implement.

it was before the lean startup cycle model, it was before very many people knew HOW to grow a business.

Raising money IS a full time job. and the moment you dont have the money, your done. you cant pay the army of coders, you cant pay for the traffic your dead in the water. so they were doing it the way it was done at the time.

now, the model is so much more well known, there are dozen of models that do not require the kinds of money they guys were using.
what used to cost 500K,(website) can be done for free with wordpress
what cost 100K to integrate back then, now can be done cheaply with API's and plugins. what can be launched in a weekend, and built up over a couple months of testing for a couple grand used to take millions.
back then, you didnt focus on the customer experience. you HAD TO GET EYEBALLS!!! then you could see if it worked. amazon was not profitable for years.

in fact there was only old school user experience to try to relate to. surveys, phone calls etc. you were building value, by building something that didnt exsist before. so ya, having been in alot of startups before, I see alot of mistakes, and misteps, but that is ANY startup.

overall i liked the movie because its pretty realistic. people play at business, until they understand what thier business is. people spend alot of time raising money, for a venture that large. because large ventures often require raising money. people focus on the wrong things, because it takes time to figure out what TO focus on.

sorry the messy world of startups are like that but ya, the suck. its not till start up number 2,3,4 or 10, before you get it right. I have started 15 companies, I have been through alot of the phases they go through.
alot of it sucks. really sucks. you think they wanted to spend so much time raising money? no. but its a requirement of the business, at the time, for what they were trying to do.

well good luck getting the world of statups to conform to your ideals while business marches on.

im sure you will get it right at some point.

dont let the suck, stop you from starting tho. Get on it!

Z

 

[ralphT]

now, the model is so much more well known, there are dozen of models that do not require the kinds of money they guys were using.

Exactly.

There are many "bootstrapped" startups that have avoided pretty much everything shown in the film.

That being said, there are different types of "suck" when it comes to growing a startup and I just wanted to dissect the documentary to make sure those starting out don't always expect the traditional format of building up a business.

 

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[camcam]

Just watched it actually for reference. Not quite sure what to think of it, I'm still in the process of coming up with the idea for a business but I take everything in as notes. You can tell it's an older documentary if you refer back to what zen******* said. You can integrate anything nowadays for nothing compared to that.

 

[Gale4rc]

The startup world is much different then the world around this forum.

 

[Damian2015]

well you can pull a lesson from mostly anything in life, even if it is something bad, perhaps they were guarding the main point to say how they became successful. i will take the time to watch it to see if i can learn anything from it

 

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