Kimkins.com Part IV - The Kimkins.com Early Days
This post is part of a series about the Kimkins diet and its controversial, secretive creator, Kimmer, aka Heidi Diaz or Kim Drake. My wife Catherine was Heidi’s founding partner when Kimkins.com started and the business partnership taught her some harsh lessons. Meanwhile, the Kimkins controversy is ongoing and new developments happen daily. You can find the first post in the series, along with the table of contents, here.
Over the past few days, with Catherine’s permission I’ve been able to delve into her email records (thank God for Gmail) to establish a more accurate chronology of the dates of start-up. For the better part of a year, Catherine has tried to put the details of the failed business partnership out of her mind while she works on more productive things, and so her memory was less than clear on the date of startup. Here’s what I’ve established:
April 18, 2006 — Kimmer started the very popular “Ask Kimmer!” thread on LowCarbFriends.com (LCF).
April 19 or 20, 2006 — Seeing the immediate popularity of the thread, Catherine first contacted “Kimmer” through LCF private message to explore the idea of an ebook and a site. Kimmer/Heidi Diaz wrote back on April 20 and an agreement in principle was negotiated.
April 22, 2006 — With the agreement of Heidi Diaz, Kimkins.com was registered in Catherine’s name at GoDaddy.com.
April 25, 2006 — The partnership agreement was signed by Catherine and Heidi Diaz. In the following weeks there was a lot of back-and-forth communication about the site and the ebook. The site was built and Catherine helped to assemble a lot of content for the ebook from Kimmer’s old LCF posts, but the project stalled out somewhat due to what seemed to be a case of writer’s block on Heidi’s end. As people have noted, the promised ebook never did materialize.
June 11, 2006 — As a result of antagonism and drama at LowCarbFriends.com, Kimkins.com was launched without the ebook and Kimmer announced her departure from LCF and the launch of her new site. Her supporters started joining immediately.
June 14, 2006 — Kimmer told a prospective member in email (blind carbon copy to Catherine), “My portion of the funds are going to help my foster kids, teenage boys who need ’stuff’ when they move out at 18 — security deposits, getting the electricity turned on, get a microwave, towels, etc.” She had already announced on the Kimkins.com boards that all her share of the profits were going to foster kids. Catherine felt right away that this was a knee-jerk reaction to criticism about the membership fee, and she wondered whether Kimmer was going to hold herself to the commitment.
Freecycle:
Within about ten days of site launch, Heidi got involved in some aggressive marketing tactics. She told Catherine that she had listed some household items she didn’t need anymore on the local Freecycle, with Kimkins.com in her signature. She apparently spent a lot of time convincing some people who expressed interest that they should join. Then she decided to try listing more free things — offers for giveaways that did not exist — on other Freecycles in other cities to generate more leads for the site. It turned out that she was posing as a satisfied Kimkins.com customer, a mom giving away used Little Tykes toys, and this crossed a line in Catherine’s mind between “guerilla marketing” and unethical business practices.
Catherine was not sure how to approach the issue with Heidi because Heidi appeared to be so anxious to make the site a big overnight success. In Catherine’s opinion, Kimkins.com was doing just fine under its own steam and it had lots of legitimate word-of-mouth advertising. Furthermore, Catherine was doing search engine optimization work which would bring longterm sustainable site traffic. It seemed strange to Catherine that Heidi — who, on the site, was just giving advice like she always had, and who had stated that all her money was going to a good cause, was so manically motivated to hype the site. She tried to gently suggest that Heidi lay off the Freecycle tactics and just relax while the site grew on its own.
Within a week, on June 26, 2006, Catherine received a demand from GoDaddy to explain the Freecycle posting Heidi had been doing, with the threat of revocation of the domain name registration for spamming. Catherine insisted to Heidi that she has to stop the Freecycle spamming or risk losing the business. Heidi agreed, and apologized for what she portrayed as just overenthusiasm.
The demands and anxiety about site promotion continued from Heidi. Catherine’s original expectations were that the site’s growth would be limited by Heidi’s desire for privacy and refusal to do personal appearances. She was not sure where all the promotion was supposed to lead if Heidi was not willing to make the talk show and interview rounds to promote the diet. Between the demands of troubleshooting the new site, responding to customer service requests, and then dealing with Heidi’s aggressive promotion tactics and their fallout, Catherine was starting to become disillusioned. She now feels, in retrospect, that the Freecycle situation was the red flag that should have made her demand that Heidi buy her out. As it happened, it was two more months until things came to a head.
The Before and After Pictures:
I felt that there was something off about the before and after pictures the first time I saw them in July of 2006. As I recall it, I said to Catherine, “Look, these aren’t the same people.” Catherine has always had a hard time with faces (to her embarassment, she’ll walk past our accountant or her hairdresser on the street without a second glance). Also, she knew that dozens of people had successfully followed Kimkins to lose weight at LCF, so why would Heidi make up fake stories?
Heidi had a back story for Catherine about every before and after testimonial she produced. However, it has since been pointed out by observant people that some of the early before and after pictures appear to have been faked and stolen.
One of the after pictures Heidi provided, an after of “Jackie,” turned out to be an 80’s model by the name of Louise Vyent. It seems like Heidi had cold feet about “Jackie” and I believe that this before and after was not used until after Catherine was gone. My review of the email record revealed some remarkable (in hindsight) statements from Heidi to Catherine about “Jackie.” These statements are taken directly from Heidi’s emails to Catherine:
July 19, 2006: “BTW, Jackie is my boys’ therapist. 
Tammy is my sister’s manicurist, she’s a hoot! She was so impressed when my sister lost 70 lb she had to give Kimkins a shot.”
July 19, 2006: “I’m sorry but we can’t use Jackie. Her husband thinks since she’s a “professional” it would be harmful for her to appear on a commercial website. Ditz. Oh well.”
July 25, 2006: “I’m also still working on Jackie’s husband. He’s a man’s man, if you know what I mean. The approach is different. Dummy.”
About “Deane” (whose after picture is the blonde in a graduation cap and gown):
July 25, 2006: “I think we found the girl for our next newsletter. It’s beyond impressive! She’s a lurker from LCF. I coached her via email. You pronounce her name Duhnay.”
Christin, whose real Kimkins success was the subject of a recent Woman’s World cover story, has still not commented on Heidi’s alleged refusal to meet with her when Christin was in Los Angeles. To this day, I am not aware of anyone who can claim to know “Kimmer” in person.
UPDATE: See many of the most controversial Kimkins before and after pictures here.
Next: Kimkins.com Part V - Celebrities on Kimkins?
July 10th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
[…] Kimkins.com Part IV - The Kimkins.com Early Days […]
July 10th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
I’m already looking forward to the next installment. Whoever this person is “kimmer” is a fraud.
July 10th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
Not that I’m a rah-rah LCF suporter, but how can you say:
June 11, 2006 — As a result of antagonism and drama at LowCarbFriends.com, Kimkins.com was launched without the ebook and Kimmer announced her departure from LCF and the launch of her new site. Her supporters started joining immediately.
When you state that the contract was signed 6 weeks earlier? It’s obvious that it had nothing to do with LCF or how she was “mistreated”, which has come to light that she lied about being banned and other things, but was just another misleading bunch of publicity stunt?
April 25, 2006 — The partnership agreement was signed by Catherine and Heidi Diaz. In the following weeks there was a lot of back-and-forth communication about the site and the ebook. The site was built and Catherine helped to assemble a lot of content for the ebook from Kimmer’s old LCF posts, but the project stalled out somewhat due to what seemed to be a case of writer’s block on Heidi’s end. As people have noted, the promised ebook never did materialize
July 10th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
Wondering, I did not mean to imply that the site came about as a result of anything going on at LCF — just that it was launched “early” (before the ebook was ready) because of some arguing that was happening in early June.
July 10th, 2007 at 2:21 pm
Thank you for that. Like many others who have been responding here, we’re suspicious that a lot of her alleged strife was made up to gain sympathy and get people to her site from LCF and ALC.
July 10th, 2007 at 6:04 pm
Don’t know if it’s accurate but up in the right hand corner there’s a listing of “Recent Readers” and listed near the top are WW cover-girl Christin (totaltransformation) and LC blogger Jimmy Moore (livinlowcarbman).
Don’t either of these devout Kimkins supporters have anything to say about the information posted here? Do they not have even the teeniest, tiniest doubt that perhaps Kimmer isn’t exactly the Low Carb Wonder Woman that she claims to be? That maybe, just maybe, her tactics to woo members and money to her site aren’t completely honest and above board?
Kimmer refused - REFUSED - to meet either one of them in public. Christin, who was already right there in town at WW’s request and Mr. Moore, who graciously offered to fly clear across the country to meet with her privately. Does that not “bother” either of you? Does that not send up even the smallest of little red flags?
From reading your respective blogs, I gather that God and personal integrity are important to each of you. And that’s awesome. Which makes it all the more confusing to me that neither of you seem to care that people are being misled and even outright deceived to the tune of 60 bucks a pop. By your silence, you are a part of it.
July 10th, 2007 at 9:56 pm
when my friends and I joined last year we were promised the ebook, when it was completed, as an accompament to our lifetime membership.
Now, however, there is no mention of an ebook—-and of course we are too afraid to ASK about it, because apparently when you ask questions you get banned for being annoying
July 11th, 2007 at 12:06 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.
July 11th, 2007 at 9:36 am
Just curious. I have read here and on LCF about the Christin story, but everyone who tells it there says they are just repeating “what they heard”. Is there any documentation that Christin told this story? Where did you get this information? Maybe I missed the post. If you could provide the link I would love to read that thread. Thanks!
July 11th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
CuriosityCat, the story was posted here:
http://www.lowcarbfriends.com/bbs/showpost.php?p=8877926&postcount=1152
Since it’s hearsay, that’s why I’ve asked Christin whether or not it’s true. According to my BlogLog she’s made at least a couple of visits to the blog since the story was posted, but so far no comment. It bears mentioning that Christin is a Kimkins.com affiliate.
July 11th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
Thanks!
July 11th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
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.
July 11th, 2007 at 8:18 pm
I wonder why she still used the model pics after she clearly was somehow made aware back in July 2006 that there was a potential problem? I had written to her in Feb. 2007 and asked her why she was using a famous model in the success story and she basically smarted off at me - then took them down shortly after.
July 14th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
People are searching for answers. What’s the point in dragging this out for weeks on end? Why not just tell us what you know?
July 14th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
I agree with Lisa!
C’mon Martin please get on with it the natives are getting restless!!!! LOL
I myself would love to see part VI + VII combined!
July 14th, 2007 at 5:29 pm
Uhhhhh…….. I don’t really care since the diet works…….I’ve lost 5 lbs in 4 days.
July 15th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
Of course it works. You could eat ANYTHING as long as you eat 500 - 600 calories a day - are you really that stupid? It’s not a secret nor is it “Kimkins” secret.
Once you eat normally, that 5 lbs will turn into a gain of 8 lbs.
July 15th, 2007 at 3:19 pm
Martin,
I’m rather enjoying the methodical process you are using to unfold the story of your wife’s initial involvement with Kimkins and the related issues including Jimmy Moore’s involvement, membership bannings, etc.
Demands for you to just “post what you know now” are borne of the very same mentality for instant gratificaton that drives people to try something like Kimkins in the first place.
Please continue to take your time and provide us with the information at the pace you intend. I’ll be very patiently waiting!!!
Thanks again,
David
July 16th, 2007 at 8:44 am
In Jimmy Moore’s podcast today he stated that Catherine contacted him in April 2006 and he agreed to be a Kimkins affiliate. Based on the timeline above, he made that agreement weeks before the site was launched and admits he has been with this all since the beginning. Any wonder he is so defensive and taking the to the idea he’s a “victim” being “maliciously maligned” (his words, podcast 7-16-07)?
Jimmy, you gotta get real dude!
July 18th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
Nothing more in a week? I’m losing interest fast now. No update tomorrow and I’ll be done with keeping your site in my bookmarks to check back with. Sorry, but I have a life!
July 24th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
If there are questions if Kimmers is being real or not— Why doesn’t someone that has subscribed to her kimkins.com tell the secret diet plan and food lists that have made her so popular? Maybe that will stop her for making a profit and ripping everyone off?
July 29th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
Well, I guess this series is over.