E-Dreams (2001) User Reviews

A Great Look at the Rise and Fall of a Web Icon

[bdorfman · 8/10 · 18 July 2001]

I saw e-Dreams in the Seattle International Film Festival and enjoyed it thoroughly. 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.

Exemplary

[sarge_5150 · 8/10 · 2 July 2004]

As a veteran of several dot-com companies, watching this film was like watching home movies. Other vets of that era and I watched this film with sick fascination, seeing events and situations that we ourselves had endured. This film perfectly captures the thoughtlessness, greed, and insanity of those years. Unlike the other reviewer, I thought the ending perfectly captured the era: even when it was obvious that it was over, the jokers that led us down the garden path in the first place refused to acknowledge it. This film serves well as a documentary of one of the most spectacular dot-bombs but it serves even better as proof to those that lived through it that they are not alone.

Excellent portrait of life in Silicon Alley

[geoff-29 · 8/10 · 18 March 2003]

This film gets close to what was happening with New York internet startups 1999-2001. The chaos, the parties, the IPOs, the overall feel of possibility (at least in 1999).

The director made a great choice by featuring Joseph Park, who shows the energy, dedication, and naivete of an entrepreneur in charge of a Big Idea and a (onetime) Big Company.

Startup.com got more word-of-mouth, but this is a much more satisfying film, showing and explaining the company up-and-down and some key issues in Kozmo's life. For those disappointed with the lack of anything internet-related in the startup.com story, this film hits the mark.

(sort-of-spoiler below)

The music is distracting, and I wish the movie was a bit longer and more fleshed-out, but overall it's a great documentary, with a party scene that took me back - I wasn't at that party, but I was at plenty others like it...

e-hubris

[daj224 · 30 August 2004]

Well, we knew trouble was headed the company's way when they couldn't get the utility bills paid. Or when the payroll procedure was out of whack. All this while thwarting the flurry of calls from top Wall Street investment banks and leading the investment community to believe that a tenuous relationship to the internet was all it took to catapult the company towards an astronomical market cap.

In e-dreams, as with Startup.com (another fine documentary about the e-retail debacle), we are taken a roller coaster ride through one entrepreneurs dream and its contrapuntal relationship with the grim realities of corporate America. At one point in the film, the co-founder bemoans how control of the company was turned over to seasoned veterans. Welcome to the party, pal. Early 2000 saw 2 trillion dollars worth of company and investor money wiped out in about six trading sessions. Kozmo.com is caught in all of this, transforming from 10 employees in a decrepit, NYC warehouse to a 1,100 arsenal in ten major cities after collecting over 280 million dollars from VCs. In the end, sadly, Kozmo was out the door as quick as the Seinfield character that spawned its name, laying off all employees, jettisoning its founders, and liquidating--at one point, giving away--its assetts. 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 how ludicrous the whole Internet bubble was to begin with. In the long run, profits rule the day, not good PR.

D.J. NYC Aug 2004

and people think the government wastes money....

[vincent-27 · 6/10 · 18 September 2009]

2 Trillion dollars down the drain in 6 days? Just think what that money could do in the world. It amazes me how people jump all over the government for overspending and being inefficient, well at least they provide some kind of service, where did all that money go? This movie documents the rise and fall of a startup dot com company during the late 90's, much like the movie "startup.com" did (a far superior film). Kozmo.com was just one of the many companies that went bust when investors started to wake up from their dreamy fog and realize that, hey, businesses need to make money. What a concept! But I guess that's what investors do, they perpetually look for a way to make a lot of money by doing very little. How could they expected such a hair-brained idea as having everything delivered to your door in less than an hour and actually make money at it. Just because you can do it on the internet? Big deal, people could order stuff from the phone for a long time before that, and even order stuff through their TV. Just because you make that first step a little easier doesn't change the fact that you have an enormous infrastructure to support. Even I realized early on in the internet days that the only way internet companies could make money is if they delivered information only, not actual hard goods. That's what ebay does, that's what google does, yahoo etc. Other than that a website is nothing more than a sophisticated pamphlet. And I thought these guys were supposed to be smart? I guess greed can blind your judgement. There is a scene in the movie, just before Kozmo is supposed to IPO, where Joe Park is at a party (probably drunk) and yelling into a microphone about how great the company is. The look in his eyes is kind of scary, he just seems to be overcome with swimming in so much money. One thing he fails to see, and so did most of the other companies, that raising $250 million in VC funds is NOT the same as actually MAKING $250 million, which is much harder. Didn't they realize that these people were INVESTING in their company, not GIVING them free money? And I thought these guys worked at Goldman Sachs? Here's a hint guys, if somebody's idea seems crazy, it probably is.

The Market Prevails!

[EdwinRywalt · 9/10 · 18 August 2005]

After viewing this documentary, I did some additional research on this company, Kozmo.com and discovered just how ridiculous the dot.com business model (if you can call it that) was. The DVD that I viewed had some additional information on the founders of this company. After the company failed, the CEO, Park, is reported to have gone off to the Harvard Business School. Incredible, but not surprising. I thought the documentary was terrific in that it perspicuously presented the 'scam' that was perpetrated by this company by going after funding instead of profitable and meaningful business. Kudos for producers and directors Wonsuk Chin and Sam Pai.

Make it stop!!!

[scottwired2172 · 1/10 · 20 October 2005]

I had one of the most infuriating movie watching experiences of my life watching this on DVD. I can't believe the immature, clueless, egomaniac founders of Kozmo raised $280 million for this harebrained, no win, "business," and then blamed its demise on the markets and the VCs who didn't want to plow more money in. The filmmaker cast a nauseatingly sympathetic eye toward the whole train wreck, basically making the founders look like cute failed visionaries. God help us if we ever go back to a time where half-baked, profitless ideas, on such a mass scale, get funded. If anything, this movie demonstrated how intoxicating media attention is, how it drives a company to made bad decisions. The CEO's inability to stop himself from talking to reporters during the IPO quiet period is one blatant example. To that end, I can't think of any other failed business-oriented documentary, chalk full of corporate malfeasance and ineptitude, that so likely pleased its subjects. The epilogue (the special features interviews) confirmed that the only lesson learned by these guys is that it was everyone else's fault, or that they grew too fast because the older seasoned guys they brought in wanted to "run big companies." Never mind that it was the founders who raised a Third World-debt-sized war chest and blew it. Or that the economic underpinnings of the business were flawed and hardly baked, and there was no possible way to become profitable EVER. The filmmaker, like the founders, gives no thought to the numbers. So what is this movie about? Publicity -- pre, during and post. Addiction to personal publicity, self-satisfaction, and no practical experience in building a business is what drove this company and its founders to extinction.

Not as good as startup.com

[rev4bart · 5/10 · 10 January 2007]

This was a decent movie, but like the other reviews mention the movie paints the founders in a great picture.

There is no confrontation or emotion shown by the characters. Even as their make mistakes with PR, IPO is pushed back, layoffs start or they even get demotted they are smiling and joking around like nothing happened and they don't take any of it seriously. You do get the feeling that they were just along for the ride. This movie also shows very little of the mood inside the company and the focus is mainly on the "good times" rather than the downfall.

I saw startup.com before seeing this movie and this movie disappoints compared to it. Startup.com shows a lot more the joys, pain of starting your own company. This just feels a little too polished and doesn't deliver in either entertainment or any business lessons you can take away.

Not named after Kozmo Kramer...

[alexkogon · 29 January 2008]

...but after the drink, the Cosmopolitan, which was quite the hip drink those days. When I first met Joe he wined and dined me at some of the most over-priced bars in Manhattan (not the hip ones, they were down the street; I offered to show him, but his self-conviction that we were in the best place was amazing), and he drank many.

I actually haven't seen this movie, but I was involved with Joe and Yong before it was a company with 10 employees in a decrepit warehouse, when it was just the two of them in an apartment in lower Manhattan, with me living upstairs. I was running a software development firm at the time and met Joe in the hallway and he asked me to come talk to them.

I met with Joe and Yong and gave them some technical advice and they asked me if I would be interested in developing their software. I said sure, and we negotiated the terms, and they said great they wanted me to do it.

I started putting a team together and getting the paperwork together and was in touch with them and they were constantly positive. Then a few days later they told me they wanted to compensate me all in equity, to show that I was committed to their concept. As I personally believed they would never make more than enough money to pay their delivery people (a view apparently shared by many more sophisticated analysts), I told them I was interested in cash only.

They continued to lead me on that I would be doing the work, until I came down to finalize the paperwork and they told me they had hired someone else, after assuring me they wanted to work with me and not even telling me they were looking elsewhere! Now knowing what Joe Park's handshake and word were worth, I ventured off to fairer pastures and didn't think much of it again. I bumped into Yong later and he told me that the people they hired didn't know what they were doing (you get what you pay for!) and asked if I wanted to be involved again; I felt sorry for Yong but didn't want to get back involved.

Of course I saw them again and was even their customer (though I quickly defected to Urban Fetch when they launched, on principle). It was great to come back from Europe with jet lag, call them up at 5 AM and order a movie and some cokes and have them show up. I was amazed at how successful they were at raising capital; whenever I met with Joe in the early days he couldn't get through a sentence without stammering with an "ummm...well..."; years later I saw him on TV, and it was the same story! People invested over $250MM with this guy? What are the rest of us doing wrong???

I look back on it all with affection for the funny days of the dot com madness (and this was early). It was only a couple weeks of my time and I didn't invest a penny, so I guess I got off easy. I did not know there was a movie made, I have to see it; nor did I know it made CNet's Top 10 dot-com flops list. The things you find when you are bored surfing the internet! I would like to know what Joe Park is up to these days, but that info is not so obvious...

Ultimately unsatisfying (spoilers)

[Charles-31 · 4/10 · 18 March 2002]

e-Dreams is a real-life view of Kozmo.com, a startup Internet company during the final heyday of the net IPO's. Kozmo followed the traditional dot-com business plan of raise financing, raise more financing, then IPO, only the market crash tanked their IPO, leaving them unable to function after burning of $280 million of investment funds. Of all of the various businesses created during that craze, few can approach the absolutely ludicrous level of stupidity the Kozmo business plan (if it can be called that) represented. One analyst computed that Kozmo would have to grow large enough to hire virtually the entire popular of the United States in order to make a profit that justified the target stock price. I really believe Wonsuk Chin, the director, recognized that and planned to show the rise and fall from the beginning.

As an inside view of Kozmo, the film is sometimes fascinating, showing how financing ideas developed, and often enlightening, demonstrating stupidities like failing to pay the utility bill or not having paychecks ready on time. It is also fascinating in its complete omission of any details about running the company. The lack of a business plan is evidenced in every day's operation. But, it also has long periods of absolute boredom. We see lots of plane travel that adds nothing to the narrative and near the end of the movie there is a long monologue by Joseph Park that seems to go on forever.

(Spoiler here, though most everyone knows how this ends, anyway)

But, what I did not like about this film is that the ending was decidedly unsatisfying. As a critic at the time of the egregious waste in the Internet era, I wanted to see them close the doors and recognize that their idea was a failure. Instead, we are cut short at the departure of Joseph Park, who leaves feeling that the only thing he did wrong was not choosing the right financing model. The ultimate climax of the movie, the failure of Kozmo.com, is left to footnotes at the end. You get the impression that these are criminals who get away with it, and that's just not the point of the film.

Kozmo.com

[biddiesmama · 1/10 · 4 September 2007]

I was unable to watch the documentary, but I would still like to comment on Kozmo.com. My husband worked for the company based in Washington, DC and they did discriminate. They would only deliver in certain areas, preferably the upper class neighborhoods. Also they treated their employees like dodo. They overworked them and in return instead of pay raises and bonuses they gave them stock in the company. Whoop Dido a company that went belly up a year later......Kozmo was a just not well put together. Dot com business really need to be thought out. I believe it was rushed and that is why the downfall was so hard. It put a lot of people out of work at a really bad time.