The plotline is akin to the french novel, Cyrano de Bergerac by the classical writer Edmond Rostand. Cyrano and Christian love Roxane, and one will work in the shadow (Cyrano) and the handsome Christian will take it all in being the girl's lover. There is a head and a puppet, working together. The lines are witty, french high schoolers learnt the cues at school. As the title suggest, the MC is Cyrano, that is to say E. Rostand is much more clever than Start up writers.... They should have copied the book ending, because Start up story ends so dumb.
The office working universe is unrealistic. They always seem to have free time. The scenes at SF are ridiculous. I don't think that successful computer engineers spend their whole day drinking fine wine in a boat.
And if you focus only the love story, as I said, the ML should be JPY. I am not fan of children sweetheart stories and it won't bother me that FL ends up withn ML, BUT I did not feel much chemistry between the two main actors. I skipped their scenes several times, I was not moved at all.
If you compare this drama with 100 days my prince, KSH was also the second lead and he was already a charming scene stealer. Nevertheless, the ML and FL were brilliant so KSH just did a good job as the SL. Also, the SL ending was pretty nice, contrary to Start up drama.
I enjoyed the drama, the pace was good but script mistakes + poor lead acting cause the greatest SLsyndrome ever. And this is a viewpoint from someone who is already a KSH's fan, before seing Start Up. I liked the fact that we can see his tragical palette acting which was not revealed yet. He deserves this success, I am glad for it.
Therefore, I do think Kim Seonho and granny save the whole drama and were the best part of Start up. This is too bad.