An open letter to Yuhna Kim, founder of the meditation app, Simple Habit.
Dear Ms. Kim,
We’ve never met, but you know me well. I started my company, Whil, three years ago. We have a wellbeing training platform to help people live healthier, happier and more engaged lives. Prior to starting Whil, I had the pleasure of running Headspace. In creating Whil, we took great care to create something new in the marketplace; a completely different goal-based mindfulness meditation experience targeted to a professional audience.
Last week, one of our clients reached out asking “Have you seen the knock off of your app called ‘Simple Habit?’ It was just on Shark Tank.” Unfortunately, since your launch, I’ve gotten a few of these calls each week. Our team felt it was time to reach out (again).
During your appearance on Shark Tank, the hosts accused you of just wanting free PR and self promotion that stole a spot from someone who actually needed it. It was hard to watch. We are happy for anyone bringing mindfulness and meditation into the world. However, how you do that matters. On behalf of the thirty employees at Whil, we can empathize with Shark Tank’s feelings of being exploited by your company.
I’m writing with concerns that we have shared in correspondence with you, and which you’ve ignored. Similar to our clients, we have concerns regarding what appears, in our opinion, to be Simple Habit’s ongoing (and less than mindful) exploitation of other entrepreneurs’ work. Your PR showcases a compelling millennial-woman-in-tech storyline. We celebrate that. The world needs women in STEM and all fields to be successful. However, in our opinion, your actions showcase a disingenuous investment-banker-in-tech agenda.
In interviews, you tout having launched Simple Habit in under four months, even stating that it was easy. That’s record time by any measure. It also sounds too good to be true. In our opinion, you appear to have lifted key elements of your business from other successful products using a 10-step process:
1. Borrow a Name. BJ Fogg is a pioneer in healthy behavior change. His “Tiny Habits” work has been transformational for startups trying to help people. It appears you’ve named your company “Simple Habit” and borrowed heavily from his famous method and language without accreditation.
2. Hire an Insider. Prior to you starting Simple Habit, one our early teachers gave you a “friends & family” pass for free, unlimited access to the Whil training platform. This was done without our knowledge. According to our analytics, you cycled through virtually our entire mindfulness training library. To say that you were a power user would be an understatement. We later learned that this same teacher is now (retroactively) listed as your “Advisor and Teacher Development”, that she helped create Simple Habit, recruited the teachers (including several on Whil’s platform), and is a shareholder in your company. Prior to terminating her agreement with Whil, your Advisor continued to ask Whil employees intimate details of our business model. We took it as curiosity from a friend. In hindsight, the “friends & family” access that she gave you to Whil no longer feels friendly.
3. Outsource all Development. You claim to be a “tech entrepreneur.” However, in downplaying her involvement and SH’s intentions, your Advisor informed us that you outsourced your “lightweight-app” development to one of the many quick-turn freelance chop shops in the Bay Area.
4. Borrow a Player. buddhify has been around for six years and is well known for a high quality meditation training app, a wonderful founder (Rohan Gunatillake), and an inventive Radial app player - something our space had never seen. As they have pointed out, you appear to have replicated their famous radial player without accreditation.
5. Borrow an Interface. Whil has been around for three years and is known for our research, goal-based training, enterprise-grade SaaS training solution and the deepest library of teachers and content. You continue to promote yourself as the only solution with this approach or variety of teachers. As a power user of Whil, you and your Advisor know that’s not true. In the limited correspondence you’ve seen fit to reply to, you’ve even apologize about your claims.
Your actions may not be evident to consumers. However, it is evident to the talented teams who actually created the Whil and buddhify experiences. It’s evident to our corporate clients, whom you are now pitching with your “company offering.” You appear to do this despite SH having no ability to deliver a secure, HIPAA compliant enterprise-grade solution. It would take SH years and a lot more than the $2.8M you raised to replicate our full model backend technology. To even suggest otherwise to unsuspecting businesses is reckless. In our opinion, you launched Simple Habit with your Advisor’s assistance, borrowing the look and feel of our platform including the layout, content, training structure, teacher options, teachers and even the imagery and photography (down to teacher headshots) that we created and own outright… and you’ve taken a piecemeal approach to removing these recognizable elements once called on it.
6. Borrow a Website. At launch, you appear to have replicated our website, including significant parts of our copyright protected language. Once again, only following our objections, did you strip the Simple Habit website down to its current form. Perhaps your investors have since given you mindful advice regarding trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets.
7. Borrow the Strategy and Content. You appear to have replicated the model of Whil’s targeted goal-based training approach. That includes significant parts of our training catalog, the groundbreaking layout and presentation, with SH making minimal changes to color and background. On Shark Tank, you shared slight modifications to our business model with teacher revenue shares. It appears that you’re even using Whil’s vendors to create content, following your Advisor’s request for their contact information.
8. Borrow Headlines, Taglines and Claims: At launch, you claimed to have the “Search Inside Yourself” (SIY) teachers from the famous emotional intelligence program “born at Google.” You did this despite your Advisor knowing that Whil paid over $500k to produce the exclusive digital program with the SIY Leadership Institute (SIYLI). She introduced us. As the retired CEO of SIYLI wrote, “... in the press releases, the statements about teachers' backgrounds were inaccurate and we've reached out to Simple Habit to request they be corrected. In most cases this has been saying that teachers are "from Google" when actually they have not worked at or been trained at Google.” Once again, in our opinion, you only removed the claims after recurring trademark objections from multiple parties.
In your press coverage, you tout your speed to market, collaboration with the former Director of Google’s Mindfulness programs (though your Advisor never worked for Google) and the (still unnamed) “team of Harvard Psychologists” that supposedly developed SH. Since you’re pushing a mental wellbeing product, who are they? What are their specific credentials, IP and insights into creating Simple Habit?
We’ve long used the phrase “Whil is the Netflix of wellbeing” (a phrase we borrowed after one of our global clients coined it). Since the outset, we’ve showcased dozens of top trainers. Despite being a power user, you shared with TechCrunch “We’re (Simple Habit) the first app with a Netflix/Spotify model — we introduce dozens of leading meditation teachers from around the world onto one platform.” While these may be hard to trademark, it appears that you continue to co-opt things big and small in your ongoing blog posts, interviews and Shark Tank appearance.
Despite the protections afforded to the original creators of content, taglines, etc., in our opinion, you’ve made it a simple habit to lift entire designs, business models and approaches. That doesn’t feel great to the talented people at buddhify and Whil that have spent years bringing our ideas to life. Your quick-copy approach knows no bounds, ranging from deep UX to seemingly basic advertising.
9. Take Credit and Celebrate. At each step you’ve done interviews taking credit for all of “your ideas.” You say you created SH because of the intense pressure of being in your first startup for two years. Ms. Kim, imagine the pressure for those who actually did the work.
Despite the less than ideal appearance on Shark Tank, you quickly confirmed the hosts’ concerns of your self promotion intentions. Within hours, your website read “As seen on Shark Tank”, “The team behind the Tank”, etc. In several follow up interviews and articles, you shared how your meditation practice helped you stay calm during two crying episodes on the show. Your ability to bend reality to manufacture excellent publicity is truly impressive. But one must pause to ask… Where’s the integrity?
10. Hide and Threaten Legal Action: Mr. Gunatillake and I have reached out on multiple occasions about our concerns regarding buddhify and Whil’s products being improperly replicated. You’ve refused to meet or speak. Instead, you seem to have sent us each virtually identical notes:
“A few of our teachers have explained to me that you've been 'reaching out' to them, and that you've tweeted some false and disparaging comparisons between your service and Simple Habit. I wish we could have been introduced under a better context, as I'm sure we have a lot in common personally and would get along brilliantly.
In regards to the screenshots that you've posted, I firmly believe that there's nothing proprietary or unique to how we're using (INSERT BORROWED CONTENT AND FEATURES) …. I wanted to provide written reassurances to you that we did not copy your design, we're not plagiarizing anybody, and we simply both happen to be using (INSERT BORROWED CONTENT AND FEATURES).
I hope you understand our position, and ask that you take down your false and disparaging tweet -- not only is it defamatory, it's against Twitter's Terms of Abuse. I also ask that you cease to reach out to our teachers, who have expressed to me that they feel uncomfortable. Going forward, please reach out to me directly -- I respect that we might disagree, and ask that you do the same.
Thanks, Yunha”
Ms. Kim, cutting & pasting these kinds of notes can’t feel good. The issue in your approach is clear. As one commenter wrote following one of your many self promoting interviews:
“The business (Simple Habit) has been taking existing concepts that work and then "curating" them together. This is both fast and can bootstrap, meaning a $50m exit like Groupon clones in Europe that sold to Groupon is more than enough payout versus taking lots of investor money. For a one person startup with hired contractors and college kids, there is a limit to how one can innovate. Without borrowing and copying from existing success, Yunha wouldn't be able to build a startup from beginning to finish in 2 months to a ready finished product from building in February to release of an app in April. She is also trained as an investment banker which is a cut throat profession and as long as it is legal/grey area, most of them will do things that make them money….”
Ms. Kim, you ended your Shark Tank appearance by saying “I’m not lying.” It’s an unusual and memorable phrase. Entrepreneurs are systematically ripped off every day by people in other countries replicating their hard work to use it to enter the U.S. market. Bringing this approach into the wellness and wellbeing space doesn’t feel like SH is trying to get along brilliantly.
In speaking with Mr. Gunatillake on this matter, he shared, “Our wheel-based interface has become somewhat iconic within the world of mindfulness apps. While imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, we feel there is a clear point at which imitation become plagiarism. At buddhify, we believe that the values and thinking of how we work is just as important as the app itself. Call me naive, but I believe that wellbeing companies should aspire to be better than the average startup. This experience has made us realise that our values have never been more important. It’s inspired us to work on evolving our app even more since our creativity and our heart can never be ripped off.”
I couldn’t agree more. When it comes to helping people, the world needs all the entrepreneurs in wellness that it can get. The more new ideas and competitors, the better. But the approach you continue to take does not feel like competition.
Being connected to a mindfulness practice, you may be familiar with three foundational beliefs. The first is do no harm. The second is that there is no pill form of mindfulness. It takes hard work and practice. You can only reap the benefits by actually doing the work. The third is the practice of not saying something unless it’s true, necessary and kind. While I could certainly do better (we all can), that was my intention here.
On behalf of Whil Team, may we all bring more integrity to our work. And may we be grateful for the entrepreneurs that take the risks and lead the way by truly creating from nothing.