Kimkins.com Part II - What is the Kimkins Diet and How Did Kimkins.com Get Started?
This post is second in a series (you can find the first post and the table of contents here) about the multimillion-dollar Internet diet marketing phenomenon that is Kimkins.com — and its controversial diet guru, a mysterious woman known to most people only as “Kimmer.” My wife, Catherine MacDonald, was a founding partner of the Kimkins.com startup, and I’m sharing the story of this business venture as a case study in business partnerships.
Around 2002, a regular poster known as “Kimmer” started to develop a following of dieters on the low carb diet forum LowCarbFriends.com (LCF). People were impressed with her weight loss success story — according to her, an incredible 200 pound loss in 11 months. How did she do it? A low carb, low fat, and very low calorie diet consisting mostly of diet soft drinks, chicken breast, eggs, water-packed tuna, and a negligible amount of salad: a diet that was eventually dubbed “Kimkins.” That the restrictive diet works, if followed, is indisputable. Dozens of LCF posters lost substantial amounts of weight, at least temporarily, following Kimmer’s advice.
In 2004, Catherine joined LowCarbFriends.com and and became a faithful daily reader of the forums. She watched as a groundswell of interest in Kimmer and Kimkins continued to build. My wife’s impressions of Kimmer were of a straight-shooting — but extremely polarizing — charismatic writer. Kimmer had a knack for summing up her thoughts and advice in concise, consistent catchphrases.
By 2006, Kimmer was conducting her own extremely popular “Ask Kimmer” threads at LCF in the midst of vocal opposition from “the Kimkins naysayers,” as she called them. Her detractors cast doubt upon the safety or advisability of the very low calorie diet championed by Kimmer. They pointed out that Kimmer only had a single out-of-date “after” photograph; it was implied that she might not even be telling the truth about her dramatic weight loss.
Catherine had been involved in online marketing for years and recognized an opportunity in Kimmer’s mushrooming popularity. She knew that Kimmer did not have the technical know how or the capital to build the infrastructure necessary to market “Kimkins,” so she wrote to Kimmer and, in exchange for a 50% interest, offered the money, programming, marketing, and technical support necessary to launch a diet site — Kimkins.com.
Kimmer accepted the offer. The terms of a contract were hammered out and a site was built, all in just a couple of weeks. Catherine worked 18-hour days assembling content and programming. The workload only increased with technical support for a rush of dozens of paid members who joined the moment the site launched in April 2006 — the result of a purely word-of-mouth viral marketing campaign conducted by Kimmer’s fans. Not even the LCF board owners’ ban policy, meant to silence any mention of the new competing site, could keep the news of Kimkins.com from spreading.
The site launched with a $14.95 membership fee, and the $300 of out-of-pocket expenses for the Kimkins startup was covered within hours. It was apparent within the first day or two that the site had a good chance of becoming a business success. In the buildup to launch, Kimmer had repeatedly expressed concern to Catherine about whether or not Kimmer’s time would be adequately compensated by her share of the site’s revenues. The clear early indications of profitability were good news.
Then, out of the blue, Kimmer did something that shocked Catherine and took her completely by surprise. Apparently stung by criticism of the membership fee, Kimmer publicly announced that all her share of the proceeds from Kimkins.com was going to go into a fund to help the foster kids who were placed in her home. Not only did Catherine feel that this unexpected announcement discounted the value of the very real work that she and Kimmer were putting into the site, but it appeared to contradict Catherine’s earlier understanding of Kimmer’s plans for the income should the site become a success.
How can one criticize such generosity? Catherine bit her tongue. The doubts had only just begun.
Next: Kimkins.com Part III - Kimmer: Who Is She Really?
July 3rd, 2007 at 5:29 pm
[…] Kimkins.com Part II - What is the Kimkins Diet and How Did Kimkins.com Get Started? […]
July 3rd, 2007 at 5:37 pm
Next: Kimkins.com Part III - Kimmer: Who Is She Really?
I hope this next installment is soon and with pictures of her in real life today at 49!
July 3rd, 2007 at 7:53 pm
You will NEVER see a picture of “Kimmer” (aka Kim Drake, Heidi Diaz).
No one has ever met her in real life, nor have they ever seen a real picture of her.
July 3rd, 2007 at 8:55 pm
Well I hope to finally get answers. My money is Kim Drake, Heidi Diaz or whatever her name is a big old FAKE!!
July 3rd, 2007 at 9:39 pm
Could this be any more vague? Who is Catherine (LCF username)? Why the hell would she be “shocked and taken by surprise” that an announcement was made describing how Kimmer chose to spend her share of proceeds? You think $300 to startup a membership site was big business? Please. $300 doesn’t buy “infrastructure”, it buys a few months of non-dedicated webhosting and a cheap template. Why not just post your story in one installment, why drag it out?
July 4th, 2007 at 1:24 am
Actually, I’m enjoying the vagueness.
Sounds like *smart* business sense to me on the part of Catherine for being conservative yet seeing potential of this business concept in the *first* place. Still, I personally have doubts too. I think if you’re going to be a spokesperson for a diet, it’s only naturally people will put you under a microscope, especially given the “success” of this diet.
Ever since I saw Kirsty Alley come out on Oprah claiming to lose *only* 75 lbs AND claiming she’s now 145lbs (not possible at air time of the oprah segment she was on), I’ve been very weary of diet advertising in general. Actually I’ve been a skeptic for years, but when you see such gross inaccuracies, you begin to wonder just how many diet “gurus” are really being honest about their stories OR their business practices.
Another excellent post. Keep them coming!
July 4th, 2007 at 8:01 am
Kimkins is a wildly endorsed fraud of a diet that encourages severely disordered eating. Never in my anorexic years did I ever look at what I ate with such scrutinity (and I was finicky!). 600 calories a day? That’s eating disorder right there. It’s not a groundbreaking diet, it’s starvation. Obviously it is going to work. If you eat about 600 calories a day that consist of virtually nothing but lean protein, you’re going to lose weight and not even feel that hungry. When I used to repeat mantras like “what nourishes me, destroys me” and “an imperfect body reflects an imperfect person”, that’s what I would eat.
The net of viral marketing surrounding this “diet” is scarily wide (and by viral I don’t mean word-of-mouth alone, I mean aggressive spamming and “optimization” of search engine results). Go to Google and you’ll struggle to find anything that isn’t directly linked to the official Kimkins website. That’s unbiased for you.
July 4th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
…..and the very “viral marketing” you mention was perpetuated by Catherine herself. Google “Catherine Kimkins affiliate webmaster” - her name is on all of them.
July 5th, 2007 at 6:44 am
I’m very curious with this ongoing Kimmer saga. I knew of her from LCF and I am following a sort of Kimkim-ish diet but I am also afraid how it will wreck my body in the long run.
July 5th, 2007 at 10:34 am
I am following this with interest. I really want to see new updated photos so we can see that she is a real person.
July 5th, 2007 at 10:40 am
I too would like to see current photos, proven to be the “real” Kimmer. I’m also a long-time member at LCF and this whole “what does Kimmer really look like” question has bugged me for YEARS!!
However, did Catherine and Kimmer ever even meet face to face?
Kimmer’s interview with Jimmy Moore was over the phone and from what I understand, so was the Woman’s World interview.
So how did Woman’s World get the infamous “red dress” pic and the bizarre “lepoard print” pic? Kimmer had the pics made in California and just sent them to WW? I find it strange that the “cover girl” for that Women’s World issue, Cristen, was really there at WW for a photo shoot, yet the creator of this so-called miracle diet just phoned it in?
Looking forward to segment #3.
July 5th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
I’m also looking forward to each of the future installments.
There are just too many inconsistencies in Kimmer’s story. I’m hoping this is exposed very, very soon.
July 5th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
Where was all the outrage when Weightloss Clinic International was putting people on 500 calories a day (800 if you had a history of eating disorders). Very low calorie diets have there place and if the truth is know they are no more harmful that gastric bypass surgery.
Also very few people maintain their loss when they lose a significant amount of weight on any diet, this diet will be no different.
I am curious to know the story on this mysterious Kimmer though, proves to be interesting
July 5th, 2007 at 2:50 pm
[…] This post is third in a series (you can find the first post and the table of contents here, and the second post here) about the multimillion-dollar Internet diet marketing phenomenon that is Kimkins.com — and its controversial diet guru, a mysterious woman known to most people only as “Kimmer.” My wife, Catherine MacDonald, was a founding partner of the Kimkins.com startup, and I’m sharing the story of this business venture as a case study in business partnerships. […]
July 5th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
I agree 600 calories a day is dangerous and very close to what I would consider a starvation diet. As it was orignally used, it was a “jump start” for Atkins, sort of a variation of the fat fast, but with just protein and enough fat to make it work, as Kimmer would say. All in all nothing she “came up with on her own”. And definetly not work 60 bucks. I cannot wait until the other segments are released!! *drools*
July 11th, 2007 at 12:19 am
For anyone who wants their money back at this point here is what you can to do.
Since Kimmer has everyone paypaling their payments, go to your paypal account. Open up a dispute on Kimmer. There are a few ways to get your money back and you have to check one of them. I suggest the first one.
Item dispute: I did not receive an item I purchased or the item I received is significantly not as described.
This I believe is how she has to give the money back. Those that are banned did not get what was described. The ebook has never materialized. Therefore grounds for money back. I am sure there are many other reasons to get your money back and I suggest that any of the ones banned or unhappy with her site do this right away. Contact and complain to paypal. She may even be investigated. Kimmer is really taking a huge chance not returning peoples money and it would be in her best interest to do it because the law does not look kindly on someone committing fraud to get peoples money.
December 2nd, 2007 at 3:07 pm
You can see pictures of Heidi from the video taped deposition on the KTLA News here:
http://tinyurl.com/2voac6
If you have been a victim of the Kimkins Diet Scam and have not already joined the class action lawsuit, please do so.
http://kimkinslawsuit.wordpress.com/2007/11/13/want-to-see-heidi-come-to-justice/
May 1st, 2010 at 4:10 pm
i always monitor my calorie intake from my diet because i have a very slow metabolism and i dont want to get overweight.:”.