Customer Reviews

E-Dreams

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The filmmakers followed Kozmo.com CEO, Joe Park, over a a couple of years. Filmed in real time, you get to watch history unfold on an amazing story. Now out of business, we watch Kozmo.com grow and become a huge. As the operations become more and more complex, the young CEO spends more and more time worrying about financing and an impending IPO, which ultimately fails. I commend the filmmakers for not editing the footage to make obvious what we now know to be true or casting the events they recorded using 20/20 hindsight. I found it interesting to note where the audience laughed. There seemed to be an assumption that the fall of Kozmo.com was pre-destined and that their business model was never a good idea. I disagree with this premise, and ultimately believe that something very much like it will be successful. Thankfully, the film allows one to draw their own conclusions. Highly recommended.

I remember seeing kozmo logos all over the place a few years ago in a trip to NY, so when I saw this film it was a fantastic reminder of what one can do with a bit of luck and tons of hard work..or is it the other way around?
Great film to watch and lots of insight into how not to run a company.

Almost by definition, fly-on-the-wall documentaries have sub-standard audio - you can't have radio mikes on all your participants 24 hours a day, whatever your boom mike catches, that's what you're stuck with. So I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the audio in E-dreams. Almost all conversations were clear enough to be understood on the first viewing.

Equally fortunately, although Joseph Park is Korean, he has an clear and standard American accent. This is just as well, because this movie should have been called "The Joseph Park Show". The guy is on screen the whole time (except - perhaps significantly - during the payroll chaos in the despatch area ) and he does not shut up.

He has two modes of speaking - the first is snappy, caffeine-charged corporate-speak, the second is slow, thoughtful and annoying speak, you know, where the speaker repeats the first word of a sentence until the thought process fully kicks into gear.

With the hustle and bustle of a busy, energetic company, Joseph Park is the vortex of his tornado, but whether he's being too sharp or too tedious, the viewer always has a vigorous situation to absorb without necessarily having to concentrate on his every word. I especially enjoyed the Starbucks shareholder meeting and the aforementioned payroll chaos - the bosses were in their ivory tower talking about millions in venture capital while the poor delivery guys were trying to extract their hundred bucks from the clueless paymaster.

Whether by accident or design, I found the clarity of the audio decreased towards the end. It was almost as if Joseph Park was being swallowed into the belly of a whale - the plunge of the NASDAQ, the losses being racked up by the company, the mirage of the IPO, the people appearing out of left field to take over Kozmo. It all added up so that his voice was no longer the song to which the company danced.

This leads me to the DVD extras. There is a full-length commentary, with both the director and Joseph Park. Unfortunately the director said virtually nothing about how the movie was shot , or his vision, or even his opinion on what he was witnessing. He is basically there to ask Joseph Park questions, and the whole commentary becomes a tedious post-mortem of a dead company. If you can wade through 90 minutes of Joseph Park in annoying-speak mode, there are a few snippets and worthy insights, but generally the commentary is not worth your time.

Equally disappointing is a mini feature, supposedly about what the main participants moved onto a couple of years after Kozmo closed. Unfortunately the production standards are low and Joseph Park has nothing interesting to say anymore.

This movie was hard to get for a while, but I see now that's back in print. If you are interested in how snappy talking and a big smile can rake in millions of dollars, grab E-Dreams and let Mr Park take you on a wild ride of good intentions, incompetence, big bucks, hype and ambition.

I just saw this documentary on the Sundance Channel. I look forward to the release of the DVD. This is a poignant, insightful, and intelligent portrayal of the rise and the fall of one of the most promising e-companies--kozmo.com.
Founded by a former employee of Goldman-Sachs, this young CEO was no stranger to the world of investments and balance sheets. His idea for an internet company that would deliver snacks and videos 24 hours a day, 7 days a weeks, within an hour of the order placement was an original one that actually drew in gargantuan partners Amazon.com and Starbucks.
The idea became reality, gained momentum, and flamed out during the dotcom flameouts.
Having been involved in two startups myself, I see an interesting similarity in business problems, cultural trends within the business, and the initial winning of optimism over reality. When reality does start to knock at the door, in the form of financial statements which are in the red, the initial startup enthusiasm is impossible to maintain, and the corporate culture shifts from excited entrepreneurial hope to one of corporate rules and accountability. Many of the personalities who were drawn by the entrepreneurial free-wheeling energy are put off by the corporate shift to rules, and organization. It seems to be inevitable that those who start corporations are usually never around to run the businesses they start.
I have searched for information on where Joseph Park is today, and so far have found nothing.
I would like to see the next documentary track the "after the fall" period for these brilliant, innovative CEO's, who were in the right (or the wrong?) place at the right time, and went from millions to bust almost overnight.
It would be interesting to see how many rise from the ashes, as the proverbial phoenix, and how many disappear into oblivion after their 15 minutes of fame.

I was a faithful Kozmo.com customer - even as my friends and I were placing orders for goods (with an "on time or free" policy), we never could figure out how they were making any money. The documentary is just "ok" but not really revealing of the whole internet bubble as a force to propel something without a clear revenue model like Kozmo to the top of the heap. Now - who needs Kozmo with N'flix "instant play" and CSAs that deliver to your door.

The Bottom Line:

Though E-dreams suffers from the fact that it's less compelling and well-made than its contemporary "[...]," it's an interesting enough documentary for people intrigued by that particular economic bubble.

3/4

This is not your typical left-wing ranting against Wall Street. It is an excellent, non-judgmental documentary about how cruel capitalism is with people, their dreams and ambitions. With real-time footage, it explains the dream-gone-sour of a young Asian-American entrepreneur who wanted to create a dot com empire out of his startup Kozmo. After a meteoric rise, the company fails to go public due to the 2000 stock market crash, and rapidly declines.

Very bad luck, very bad timing! Had Kozmo gone public just two months earlier, Joseph Park would have become a millionaire. The film centers on the interactions of this young fellow with investment bankers, executives and delivery bikers, showing how a business dream turns into a collective nightmare. Pretty sad, yet an excellent business class.

While this documentary might be titled "E-Dreams," the money lost on Kozmo topped $250 million. Kozmo was possibly the greatest dot-com flameout: A company whose revenue never topped $2.5 million, Kozmo epitomized the "Grow Big Fast" business philosophy. Before their assets were dismantled in 2001, they had expanded to 12 markets and entered into an ill-fated $150 million deal with coffee giant Starbucks (of which 'Bucks only received $15 million). Hindsight, as they say, is 20-20, but watching this DVD it's impossible not to wonder how so many investors could have been so blind.

I actually liked this one a little more than startup.com since the characters are actually likable. The directing and photography are cool and the music soundtrack - where can I get it? Well done and worth it!

Well, we knew trouble was headed in the compnay's direction when they couldn't get the utility bills paid on time. Or when the payroll procedure was out of whack. All this, of course, while Kozmo.com dodged phone calls from some of the world's top investment banks and lead the investment community to think that a tenuous relationship with the Internet was all it took to catapult these companies to nose-bleed market capitalizations.

In e-dreams, we are taken on a roller coaster ride through 2 entrepreneurs vision and its contrapuntal relationship with the grim realities of corporate America. At one point in the film, one of the co founders bemoans the fact that senior talent had to be recruited to help the fledgling dot.com. Welcome to the party, pal. Early 2000 saw over 2 trillion dollars of company and investor money wiped out. Kozmo.com is imbricated in the middle of all this, transforming from a ten employee squad operating out of a decrepit Manhattan warehouse to a 1,100 man arsenal covering ten major US cities. At its acme, the company was able to collect 280 miilion dollars in VC money and form a strategic alliance with SBUX, which was in and of itself an incredible business concept.

In the end, sadly, Kozmo.com was out the door as fast as the Seinfield character that spawned its name. In 2001, all the remaining employees were laid off, the 2 founders headed off towards MBA-ville, and company assets were liquidated. Yes, even the orange fleeces had to go. Ultimately, the story about CEO hubris, contingency plans M.I.A., and IPO fever, e dreams reminds us of how ludicrous the Internet company craze was to begin with. At the end of the day, profits are what matter most. Not good PR.