The stories of startup founders are used to encourage, caution or just entertain new entrepreneurs all the time. But the creators of the documentary series Startupland are looking to translate their distillation of the D.C. startup experience into an educational tool any new entrepreneur could harness.
"We're developing a whole, robust curriculum," Katie Gage, the newly hired executive director for Startupland, the recently revived company that shares its name with the 2014 series, told DC Inno in an interview. "Sometimes, it's hard to even explain what a startup is," Gage said.
It was a little over two years ago, before Silicon Valley invaded HBO, that a who's who of the D.C.-area tech innovator and investor scene filled the Landmark E Street Cinema to immerse themselves in the first two episodes of the six-part series. The series was directed by Justin Gutwein, who co-created and produced it with Jonathon Perrelli, who is now CEO at smart water bottle startup LifeFuels but at the time was running Fortify Ventures and The Fort accelerator.
The documentary followed the founders of a half dozen startups and mixed with interviews from prominent tech entrepreneurs like AOL founder Steve Case and Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian to try and uncover the truth, good and bad, about what it's like to build a company out of a good idea, a ton of hard work and an occasional helping of luck.
That's where Gage, formerly a director at Springboard Enterprises and the Enstitute, came into the picture.
"After the series came out, Jonathon wanted to start looking at the next phase," Gage said. "I'd done a lot educational programs for entrepreneurs locally and internationally. Entrepreneurship education is my thing, [so] when Jonathon suggested coming onboard with Startupland [the company, not the documentary] I was really excited."
Creating an educational facet to Startupland had always been part of the plan, according to the creators of the film. But shakeups like the shuttering of the Fort and the work by Wheatley and Perrelli on LifeFuels, stalled that work until now.
"We have a lot of building to do," Gage said. "I'm going to be developing the curriculum, divvying it up like different chapters for different segments [of the documentary]. I want to give them real talk about startup life, here's what is, here's what to expect or avoid, how to plan for some of those hard times."
Marrying a years-old documentary with new educational content might provoke skepticism, but Gage is adamant that what she and the Startupland makers are creating has no expiration date. Part of the point of Startupland was to dispel the misinformation about what it takes to succeed, to make it clear that even the one-in-a-billion winners like AOL or Reddit take enormous amounts of work and sacrifice. The hype of startup founding is in some ways even higher now, Gage said, so understanding just what it entails, via the documentary and the learning materials is more relevant than ever.
"This kind of content is evergreen. It's universal," Gage said. "We're talking to possible global partners who can connect by Skype too. I kid you not, there are people all over the world who want screenings, who want to learn. They want this curriculum."
