Startupland's premiere last night packed two theaters with DC tech people. (Good luck getting this bunch to turn off their cell phones.) All to see the beginning of a web documentary on five entrepreneurs launching their companies.
Fuelicity founder Jeremy Frisch, UPGlobal marketing director Mitchell Cuevas, and Startupland director Justin Gutwein pose before the screening at the E Street Landmark Theatre. Justin documented the ups and downs of five DC-based tech startups and life in The Fort, a DC-based accelerator program that has since closed. Tech stars like Steve Case, Alexis Ohanian, and Kevin Hartz were also part of the film. The entire six-episode series will be available in early June. Justin says he's also considering doing an epilogue to follow up on the startups' progress.
Executive producer Jonathon Perrelli is flanked by co-executive producer Trenor Williams and associate producer Maxim Wheatley. The five startups featured in the movie were Trendpo, RidePost, SNOBSWAP, LegCyte, and The Trip Tribe. Jonathon's young children also came for the premiere and asked two insightful questions during the Q&A: What was your favorite part of making a movie and why did you do this? Answers: The premiere and to change the world.
We also found Urgent.ly corporate development EVP Ric Fleisher with Chris and Lisa Bradley. Chris is CTO of Sterling, Va.-based SecureForce, which sold to BRTRC, based in Vienna, Va., earlier this week. (See our recent story about BRTRC.) Four of the five entrepreneurs featured in the series were at the debut and reported that they had hired more people since the filming and wooed some of their first paying customers.
Steve Case not only played a major role in the first two episodes, but he breezed in at the tail-end of the showing after being on Capitol Hill with Bill Gates advocating for immigration reform. (He snuck out during Bill's talk to say a few words at the premiere.) He says the US was a startup 250 years ago and now it's the leader of the free world. (Does that make Ben Franklin an early adopter?) Tech is entering its third wave of innovation, with the first being the building of the Internet; the second being the building of apps; and the third is the increase of tech in major aspects of life from healthcare to education. One of our favorite Steve quotes from the movie: Vision without execution is hallucination.
