Educational Media Reviews Online

Generation Startup is a coming of age story for the twentysomething set, wrapped up in a documentary about startups. Its goal is to evangelize about entrepreneurship and the benefits thereof, and it does so by following the careers of several employees and CEOS of small startups located in the city of Detroit. The overall mood is inspirational, with a focus on the emotional growth of the various workers as they find themselves through their new businesses. This deep focus on the individuals is supported by a combination of handheld camera work and close-ups during interviews, reminiscent of reality TV show confessionals. Stylistically, it seems designed to build a personal connection with the millennial audience as a vehicle for the overall evangelistic message.

The majority of Generation Startup focuses on the challenges, stresses, and personal emotional life of the subjects, and it does make it very clear that the path to starting a business is not an easy one. However, by picking businesses that did eventually succeed the film undermines the initially stated point that most startups go under. There is also a faint infomercial air, since the CEO of Venture for America, a nonprofit organization that trains and supports young entrepreneurs, has a recurring role. Additionally, the film bites off a bit more than it can chew by introducing themes of racial diversity, gentrification, women in technology, and a recurring focus on one character’s relationship with his parents and leaving his religion. While these themes are relevant to each individual’s progress through their career and to their emotional growth, they make the film somewhat unfocused.

Overall the film has limited pedagogical value, due partially to the feature film runtime. While the primary themes (resiliency, emotional aspects to business) are certainly worth discussing, the viewpoint hopping and plethora of secondary themes make it difficult to focus or to cut up into clips for viewing during instruction. Its honesty in detailing the fears and pressures that the entrepreneurs faced saves it from being an infomercial or purely propagandistic, but the lack of detail in terms of nuts and bolts makes it difficult to use as lesson material.

Generation Startup is a decent supplementary purchase for programs focusing on entrepreneurship or on business psychology. It has more potential as a purchase for a film program focusing on documentaries, and would be excellent for the general collection as a conversation starter on entrepreneurship. While it is not optimized for use in the classroom, it is a well-made, entertaining, and inspiring film.