Startup.com Documentary

     A company started in 1999 by three guys called GovWorks.com a business whose main goal was to help be a go-between for the government and the citizens. From parking tickets to fishing permits, GovWorks was an online way to handle all your fees and permits without having to wait in line at the courthouse. Between when they started off the mid-1999 to the beginning of 2000 they became a huge success, with rising capital interviews, newspaper articles, and even their photos on magazines they were a huge sensation. Chieh Cheung was the third founder however regardless of this fact he had the least screen time and this is because he decided that regardless of the growing success that he no longer wanted to continue, he was more of the development guy, and now that it was public he wanted out. Some would criticize him for wanting out and initially, I did too, the timing was not great, and it seemed to be sprung on his other business partners Kaleil Isaza Tuzman and Tom Herman however that is something that is debatable. After Chieh left the company and cashed out at $700,000 dollars. Kaleil was the face of the business while Tom was in the shadows, during the company’s life they faced many difficult decisions and even got a few rival companies who followed them with similar ideas. This may all seem too good to be true and as they say, if something seems too good to be true it probably is. Corporate espionage, who did it was never discovered but considering they broke in with a key card to the elevator it was an inside job. If that wasn’t enough suddenly technology bomb happened and all of a sudden, their business was crumbling. One of the best ways to see what a person truly is like is by watching what they do when their back hits the wall, it was certainly interesting to see what Kaleil and Tom did when Tom was forced out of the company, Tom clung to the company while Kaleil tried to keep everything just business and not personal since they had been friends since they were in high school. At the end of the day, the company went bankrupt and Tom and Kaleil walked away with nothing but experience and a sense of failure while their other partner who they scorned for leaving the company was the only one who made any money. Today Tom works in the business but nothing like he once did, his relationship with Kaleil is complicated as he did start another company with Kaleil however it was not nearly as successful. Sometime after that Kaleil ran off to Columbia where he was later arrested and expedited to the United States in 2015 and then convicted in 2017 for fraud and market manipulation. As my teacher mentioned it makes you wonder if that corporate espionage might have been Kaleil since he had access to the building and also gave a competitor a tour of their offices. The main takeaway for me is that a business not only takes a lot of time and effort but even if it does succeed and flies high it can always be destroyed, sometimes the safest option is to get out before the plane might go down even if you risk not gaining more if you kept holding on.