Justin Gutwein: Director, director of photography and editor in Washington, D. C..

The trailer for my feature length documentary. “In the industrial revolution, if you wanted to change the world you needed to open a factory. In the Internet revolution, you only need to open a laptop.” — Alexis Ohanian Startup success is often mythologized, as a result it sometimes appears easier than it really is, and in other cases it is shrouded in mystery. Startupland follows the lives of five early-stage founders through a startup accelerator, giving the viewer unique insight into what really goes into starting, running, and growing a company. In filming interviews with legendary entrepreneurs, the viewer sees that the experiences of fear, uncertainty, and doubt are not only common, they are a right of passage. We created Startupland to educate and inspire entrepreneurs both novice and veteran, and to authentically capture the life of the startup founder. Throughout Startupland, the viewer is introduced to the challenges and hurdles that every founder must get through, whether it’s hiring the first employee to courting investors, or friction on the home front, the film captures the reality of it all. Candid and frank, Startupland leaves it to the viewer to decide if what they are watching is the construction of a dream or the realization of a nightmare - startups are often both. The entrepreneurial journey is often glamorized but in reality, requires grace, grit, and grind that is instrumental to nearly every success story. As founders ourselves, we know the startup life all too well. We've seen many succeed and find great satisfaction and happiness. Unfortunately on the other hand, we've seen many who've jumped in with misaligned expectations, only to blow through their savings finding a life of stress and pressure that they never anticipated. Startupland provides a peek into the lives of those who’ve made the jump, whether they are in the middle of discovering themselves, or have succeeded already, the viewer will learn what it takes to pursue their dream of starting up. We crowd funded a portion of the funds that were necessary to create the documentary. Using Kickstarter we were able to rally an early fan-base, raise funds, and also validated genuine interest and demand for the content. We poured our savings and over two years of our lives into creating and producing Startupland and would be honored to be a part of the Sundance family. We believe that participation in Sundance is far from the end, instead, it would be the beginning of the next chapter.

We recently created this short film for the Storytelling Parade's challenge to highlight a person who is "making the world a better place". Since our work largely focuses on innovators (read: people making the world a better place), we thought we'd try something a little different! This is about our friend, Frankie Abralind, and one of his many endeavors – http://FreeCustomPoetry.org You can also see it on our website: http://thecollaborative.net/free-custom-poetry/ Watch and enjoy.