A comedy-drama series

Lost in Startups

A shy dreamer and his partner leave their small Queens apartment, buy a used RV, and drive to Silicon Valley to build a company in an age when everyone can build anything. Somewhere past Nevada they are offered everything, and have to decide whether the life they’re building is the one they actually want.

8 episodes45 minEnglish

The show

Lost in Startups follows Harry and Kate, a couple in their thirties, from a studio in Queens to the edge of Silicon Valley in a used RV, building a company along the way with help from AI that everyone swears makes it easy.

The AI era is the weather here, not the subject. The show is about pace: how a decent, slightly old-fashioned couple moves through a world built for speed, and what they have that the world can’t buy.

It plays at the tempo of the films that inspired it. Long scenes, comfortable silences, a story that takes four minutes to tell and goes nowhere on purpose. Funny first, and then, quietly, something more.

The people

Harry. A creative genius, shy to the point of sabotage. Honest, a dreamer, and not remotely ready to win. He has a hundred ideas and no instinct for selling any of them.

Kate. Introverted, dry, a born storyteller who always takes the long way round. She makes content for a living, believes in very little of it, and keeps the household afloat without anyone noticing.

Neither of them could build an empire, alone or together. What they have is harder to fund.

Around them: Eleanor, the investor who listens. Jonah, the rival who ships everything. Dennis, the boss who prices people. Roxanne, the client who never stops texting. And the strangers who keep helping.

Season one

Eight episodes, one road, one story.

01
Not on This TimelineHarry is passed over for the promotion he had already spent. He quits, by hand.
02
The PartyA going-away party in Queens, a stranger from the corner store, and a toast Harry can’t give.
03
Average JoeThe first breakdown, in a country where everyone is building something.
04
Burn OutThe money runs out. Kate names a price. Harry holds the light.
05
NevadaStuck near Vegas with nothing to lose, and the warmest night of the season.
06
The DeckNo warm introductions. Plenty of old phone numbers.
07
Warm IntroductionA two-line email, and a long way to go on borrowed kindness.
08
Terms SheetA fair offer. A long story. A pen.

The full season arc, including how it ends, is in the series bible.

In the spirit of

The American comedies of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Small people, big catastrophes, excellent manners.

Created by

Khasan has spent fifteen years designing and building products, and has started more companies than he can comfortably list. The series is fiction, but it knows the territory.

Materials

Series bible, season outline and pilot script are available on request.

Write to Khasan khasan.me