Startup.com is a 2001 American documentary film directed by Jehane Noujaim and Chris Hegedus, with D. A. Pennebaker serving as a producer on the film. It follows the dot-com start-up govWorks.com, which raised $60 million in funding from Hearst Interactive Media, KKR, the New York Investment Fund, and Sapient.
The startup did not survive, but it became a reference for lessons learned, as it was the subject of a 2001 documentary that follows govWorks founders Kaleil Isaza Tuzman and Tom Herman from 1999 to 2000, as the Internet bubble was bursting.
The film had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 21, 2001. It was released on May 11, 2001, by Artisan Entertainment.
Production
The film was produced by D. A. Pennebaker, and was directed by Chris Hegedus and Jehane Noujaim. Noujaim had been Kaleil Tuzman's Harvard classmate and began filming Tuzman as he quit his job at Goldman Sachs, to begin govWorks with his high school friend Tom Herman. Noujaim contacted Hegedus and Pennebaker for help in financing the project.