Don't take $5,000 from all your friends, Fortify Ventures Managing Director Jonathon Perrelli warns a founder over lunch in the second episode of “Startupland,” or "you're going to have 20 pains in the asses."
If “Startupland” — a documentary on early-stage entrepreneurship that premiered last week in D.C — does one thing well, it's depicting the complex and uneasy relationship founders have with outside capital. The above quote, in particular, is a particularly blunt reference to the pitfalls of the friends-and-family round, where a startup CEO risks adding a horde of impatient, inexperienced micromanagers to his cap table. It's a tension that runs throughout the first two episodes of “Startupland,” which was screened on March 13 at Landmark's E Street Cinema. Founders need early money, yet early money is expensive.