Part 1: Govworks.com pitching for success

Hi Chris, I'm really honored to speak with such a remarkable filmmaker. And the film is one of the best films I have ever seen. How did the idea for the movie come about?
Well, the movie came from two different angles, I'd been interested in doing a movie about this whole dot com phenomenon I was hearing about. Basically I was looking for a new story to do and wanted something that seemed to catch the pulse of the times.

The films of ours (D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus) that are most successful have been films that have a youthful, hopeful sense to them, like Monterrey Pop was for Pennebaker, which first exposed Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix or "Don't Look Back" the film about Bob Dylan's tour. Even with "The War Room" there was a very youthful feeling and a youthful campaign run for a very young presidential candidate.

I could see that the Internet was becoming this amazing force in everyone's life and was a revolution basically, so I looked for a story around it. And the story that was emerging was about all these kids who were starting up these companies on the Internet.

Especially in New York, in this place called Silicon Alley and in other parts of the country. I live in New York, so I started researching more. This was about seven or eight months before I started the movie.

Silicon Alley is not a real place in New York, it's just an area. All these kids were moving into lofts downtown, and I had done the same thing as an artist in the 70's. So it was very intriguing and everyone was just very excited about all this movement toward something so new.

In terms of companies at the time, when I started looking there really weren't a lot of companies, there were and Ebay.

I had a good friend who worked for Flatiron Partners and, during my research period, he let me sit in on people bringing their ideas to pitching sessions.

How were the pitching sessions?
They were fascinating, mostly because everyone was in a state of euphoric frenzy over the possibilities, even the venture capitalists themselves. There was so much money there to be played with on both sides. And the ideas were so creative and wonderful. It seemed like we were hitting a time where business, all of a sudden, was the fun thing to do.

In the sessions, did people have mapped out business plans or was it more like "Well, this is an idea and I'm not sure how to do it?"
Most of them had very immature and simple business plans. They weren't worked out and the VCs were working them out with them. At the start, it was a very cooperative situation, and that was also exciting because everyone was taking a hand in creating something. There was a lot of money, and the creative aspect, but there was also this strong atmosphere or feeling of defining something new that was going to change the world.

How did you find the govworks.com founders?
Well, I wanted to find a young entrepreneur who was just starting. They called me up and I met with Kaleil. I thought he was very charismatic and that he would definitely make a good subject for the film.

And this company (Tom and Kaleil) had such a huge idea. The risk factor alone - to take on the government - seemed so ambitious. You'd have to have a certain personality to take that on and Kaleil did. It was also interesting as a story because you had these childhood friends launching the company together. And because Jahan - the young filmmaker who worked with us - was Kaleil's roommate, we would have very open access to Kaleil.

When you went with Kaleil and his partners to meetings, and they were trying to raise venture capital, what struck you at the time?
Well, what was most overwhelming was that in six weeks they raised twenty million dollars and they barely had a business plan. Their idea kept changing every day because of the influence of the VCs they would go and see. They actually started out with an idea that they ultimately ended up with, which was to sell the transaction engine to municipalities.

But along the way, their idea kept changing, everyone kept saying to them, "No you have to think bigger, you have to be branded." And people were saying you needed to know your product, making your branding so that it would call people's attention to it. And that you had to get that first mover space, claiming as much territory as you could on the Internet. Not just being the first mover, but being the biggest mover.

Watching them raise money, what was that like, given that you were trying to raise funds for your film about them as you were shooting them?
Well, it was surreal, we were continually looking for funding while we were making the film and we weren't getting any. Meanwhile, we're filming these guys who, in six weeks, raised twenty million dollars. And everybody thought they were going to be rich, and there was unbelievable euphoria. And we're carrying around our cameras and not getting money.

Were you making them buy you lunch?
(Laughs.) Yes, well it was tempting. Because they were saying, "Oh, why don't you just make this a promo film, and we'll get one of our investors to fund it. Or we can give you stock." It was very tempting to do that. But we kind of held back because we have always been our own film company and we're happy. But it was tempting at the start because of the euphoria.

What was your sense of Kaleil and Tom, did you get the sense of innocence abounding?
Yes, I definitely did, because I'm so much older than them and it was incredible, almost like play. Now that everything's come full circle so quickly, it almost has like a dreamlike quality - it almost seems that none of it ever really happened.

But at that starting point, it just seemed like they were playacting, it was all happening so quickly and easily for them. Also, they were jumping into a field they were new at. They were kind of dressing up to fit into a role. Not that they weren't experienced at what they were doing before, a lot of them came from arbitrage and investment banking.

But this whole setting up your business and being an entrepreneur and launching a company on the Internet, they were brand new at it.

What was it like to film the end as their company and their friendship is failing?
Their friendship failing was very upsetting. There was a lot of confusion based around how it happened, why it happened the way it did. And it had a lot to do with information the Board of Directors, or the lawyers, would give to them separately. For us to watch it happening was upsetting, because it would seem that at times that we knew information that either Kaleil or Tom didn't.

And so we wanted to say, "Wait, that wasn't said." But you can't really get into that because you must keep that neutrality, and you have to really document exactly what is going on.

Continued...