Public Data Systems was the original name of the company govWorks, Inc. which was featured in the movie Startup.com.  Many people come to this site looking for unanswered questions about the govWorks, the movie, and the people in it. The most common questions asked are

1. What are you and Kaleil doing now?
2. What would you have done differently if you had it to do again?
3. What happened with the "break-in" to the Gov Works offices?

To the surprise of many viewers, Kaleil and I have continued working together on and off for many years. govWorks and the movie Startup.com was just one episode in a long list of entrepreneurial endevours of varying success. Immediately after govWorks ended, Kaleil and I started another company called Recognition Group. It's a restructuring firm based out of New York that has done some interesting work with a broad range of distressed clients. Recognition Group has gone through many incarnations over the years eventually becoming part of KIT Capital (Kaleil's Venture Fund) which has since been merged into KCP Capital.

Kaleil and I still do restructurings, buyouts, and turnarounds on a case by case basis and we're always looking for great startup ideas to invest in, so if you're looking for help with or capital for your startup, please send me an executive summary of your business plan (tj_herman@yahoo.com).

After 2 years with Recognition Group I was able to save a bit of money and I decided to move back to New Hampshire to help my father and my sister with the family business, Windsor Mountain International. Windsor Mountain International was founded in 1961, as Interlocken International.

48 years ago my parents started Windsor Mountain as summer camp in southern New Hampshire. It has since grown to offer a broad array of travel opportunities for young people to explore other cultures, build outdoor skills, language skills, and to offer community service. In the 80's Windsor Mountain began the first youth exchange with China and has since created friendship exchanges in the former Soviet Union, Israel, and Cuba. Watching my parents run a busniess was a big factor in driving me to become an entrepreneur and when I speak to undergrad and MBA students about entrepreneurship, parents as role models is a common theme.

I spent 3 years in New Hampshire when the tech startup bug hit again and Kaleil recruited me to work on another startup venture, JumpTV which is an internet TV broadcaster. I joine JumpTV as the COO in 2005 as the 7th employee and in the course of two years, we grew the company from a startup with 20 TV channels to a public company with more than 200 international TV stations, a Content Delivery Network, and advertising and subscription based business model, and a team of over 100 employees (yes we grew more carefully at JumpTV than we did at govWorks). Of course JumpTV, like any company, had its challenges. While I learned many lessons at govWorks and avoided some of the pitfalls that caught us the first time around, there are always new mistakes to make and new lessons to learn. JumpTV was not as successful as I would have hoped. In 2007 after power struggles between Kaleil, Scott Patterson, Jordan Banks, and Alex J Blum, some poor strategic decision making, some disasterous hires (Sila Celik), I left JumpTV.

I've been blessed to work for a string of companies that made products that people really wanted (access to online governement, summer camp, access to your hometown TV station when you're living abroad). My newest adveture, www.ooVoo.com is likewise, a great product with a big market. Unfortunately, a great product with lots of demand, doesn't necessarily equal a profitable business model. Again and again, I see great ideas getting mired down in the challenges of execution. It happened at govWorks where politics, hubris, poor product planning, and lack of focus destroyed the company. At JumpTV, again, politics, hubris, wasted money and poor execution prevented a great success. Let's see what happens at ooVoo, but unfortunately, my blunt, tell it like I see it style doesn't always work so well. I don't play poltics very well.

So, back to the original list of questions, how about the govWorks break in? The guy who did it was caught, but by the time they knew it was him he was already in a federal facility on some other charge. As far as what I would do differently, I suggest you read my powerpoint presentation "Lessons Learned" for an overview of some of the mistakes we made at govWorks as well as a few successes. The slides make good discussion topics for classes even though not all of them are addressed in the movie. If any of you have case studies or papers you've written that you'd like to share with others please send them to me and I might share them on this web site.

As a result of the movie, I get a large volume of email.  I try to respond to all of it and although I sometimes fall a bit behind, I still welcome your communications. My email address is tj_herman@yahoo.com.  Generally questions are about the movie, the business, or my availability to speak at schools and conferences. You might be surprised by the number of people who write to ask if govWorks really existed or if Kaleil and I were characters made up as part of a screenplay.  I enjoy meeting students and often I'll travel to your school or event for just the cost of travel. I have remained involved with the community of entrepreneurs both through speaking engagements and through my turnaround and insolvency work with Recognition Group.  My talks generally focus on the challenges of entrepreneurship, managing crisis when an entrepreneurial endeavor unravels, maximizing the return to investors in an insolvency, and the case study of lessons learned from govWorks. I would like to hear from you if you are interested in having me speak at your conference, school or trade association.  Recently I have spoken at Harvard, RIT, Tennesee Tech, UNH, and Case Western.

Further information about the movie can be found in an interview I did with the Washington Post.

If you want to see what the First incarnation of the govWorks web site looked like, send me an email and I'll email you back w/ a link.

Thanks for stopping by,

-tj