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i do like the idea of putting my goals out there and hoping others can help me stick to em...

Can't wait until this site launches... I can already see all the possibilities. My friend is about to start a triathlon.. another friend is on a campaign to cut out starches and sodium (and get a personal trainer). And this non-fat yogurt shop (pinkberry) is popping up all over LA -- people are going nuts about it. where better to find out than this site?

I’m also excited about the launch of Wellsphere. I’m a member of other sites such as Match, Friendster, and MySpace, but have difficulty finding health and wellness enthusiasts like myself. I’m training for a triathlon and am looking forward to using Wellsphere to find training partners as well as get advice on my training regimen and diet.

Wellsphere is a great idea! I’m excited to play around with this more to connect with people who share my love of a healthy and active lifestyle to exchange information. Wellsphere has a fun brand that I think people will gravitate towards.

the url in the link in the title is wrong. just letting you know

I'm training for a marathon and can't wait to connect with people who are training as well. I've been hoping to find running partners and get to know people who think the way that I do about fitness and their athletic and health goals. Wellsphere is going to be the most important tool in my training.

an apropos time to launch...could really help me stick to those healthy resolutions.

Ugh, thanks Howard. I've corrected URL.

Matt

Jeez. Wellsphere obviously posted the same happy comments here that they did on Techcrunch. What bad blog behavior. Transparency, people.

You're right on solomon. They could at least try to post different comments. That's pretty pathetic. I was going to check out the site, but common now ... it's all a fake PR play. This is NOT how genuine, sustainable communities involve. Makes you wonder about the integrity of the company.

Is it just me, or are these new Web 2.0 ideas just getting old, or variations of each other. I haven't seen an exciting idea since Google started indexing the US patent database, or YouTube. I have a better idea, a completely new idea, that fits a niche market, and is radical that it's one of the few websites that integrates with a real life device. Any VC's want to hear my idea, let me know.

Ok... who are these comments from? Let's guess:
DK: Dave Kashen, CFO of Wellsphere
KATIE: Katie is a dog that comes into wellnet. Owned by Geoff Rutledge
The others are probably their consultants.

People the site is terrible. It is not original. Booze and wellness? Nothing but expensive poor taste. These guys are nothing but PR and hype. They were seeded for a party and a bad site. Is this for real?

these are minor league rookie maneuvers that shed some light on how clueless they are. this is a joke, did they really think we couldn't tell that they posted all the positive comments and did so on techcrunch and gigaom as well? 'they' being wellsphere employees.

Where are these screen grabs from? They aren't from the site. Is this article a plant?

Ben, these screen grabs are from the site. What makes you think otherwise?

For the first one, check out "local resources" tab. That was my point. There's a lot going on here, but it's tricky to navigate without hitting all the tabs...

Nah, not a plant.

Well, I'm not an employee or consultant. I am an active person in the Bay Area and like the idea of a wellness community. For example, I recently hurt my shoulder and am in desperate need of a good referral. I already got one through the Wellsphere community. I also like to swim in aquatic park and could use some people to go with (more motivating, less dangerous). This site is a great resource for that. Sure, the site is a bit limited right now, but what do you expect? They launched Saturday and the idea is a wellness community so the community is in the process of building up.

You got a doctor referral for a hurt shoulder through the web site- hahahaha! And, you had no friends to swim with and had no idea where to find a pool without the site- in the bay area? Okay, I give, maybe the pathetically clueless and socially hopeless could use the site. Still not enough of a thrill.

Too many bugs and no cool features.

What a joke of a website... 2.0 wannabe all the way. I'm all for social networks and reviews by the masses, but I'm not too sure the site will inspire people to care enough about it. It's currently a nightmare.

good idea, but it's too bad they have not been able to hire a tech team. I'm guessing it was outsourced to some second rate Bangalore chop shop.

you can read the real story in GigaOM comments

I think the site makes a lot of sense...unfortunately I live in New York and it looks like the Bay Area will be targeted initially. Maybe you guys are spoiled by knowing a million people who do active/healthy stuff, but my friends' idea of a triathalon involves Jim, Jack and Jose. The one time I tried hiking out here (through Outward Bound), I ended up on a nature walk thru Harriman State Park. Hopefully this thing gets off the ground and makes it east ASAP.

Are you another one of their shills, Geoff? You can't be serious. My friends all around NY are plenty active and have no trouble at all finding stuff to do. Sounds like you may have issues that no website out there can help you with. Ever hear of the NY Marathon? Tell me again how difficult it is to find someone to train with.

Free me! My owner is a doofus!
woof woof WOOF! woof!
Free me! My owner is a doofus!
woof woof! bark! snuffle snuffle
WOOF! Whimper...

FREE KATIE!

Not impressed at all. This site is a joke, right? Please tell me a group of Stanford grads did not create this...my 5 year old son could do a better job creating something after an introductory coding class.

By the way everyone -please try googling "Ron Gutman". Can't find anything interesting? Weird since I thought this guy was a serial entrepreneur...more like a serial liar.

Jack Lalanne -please dont equate the work of Wellsphere to a "second rate Bangalore chop shop". What a horrible insult for those people in Bangalore!

By the way, there are so many anti Ron Gutman and Dave Kashen comments on this site, TechCrunch and GigaOm! This guy must seriously be a ridiculous character to garner so much negative attention from everyone. I guess it's safe to assume we haven't stumbled upon the next Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

Guys, there are a lot of negative comments here, and this appears to be a vendetta of sorts. Comments like "serial liar" make me uncomfortable, especially when not backed up with facts.

Matt I'm sorry if you're uncomfortable, but when there are lots of people out there flaming someone, there's usually a pretty good reason for it. How many people/organizations are widely disliked and yet are not deserving of some of the criticism? Listing the "facts" in a forum would be inefficient and, frankly, painfully boring. I don't know these guys, but I think the posts are funny and telling.

To all of those that are posting the personal attacks on the founders of this company, I encourage you to take your issues up with them directly, rather than using this forum to sling mud at them. This blog is used to support the startup community, not slander and childish rumors. Let's keep it's credibility by being constructive and supportive, so we can improve that state of things.

I quit Wellsphere today after working there for a month. It was the hardest I've worked in my entire life and I am totally crushed that the site was released so early. In my opinion, it was too early to release and we pushed the product out the door.

Sure, this is Ron and Dave's first web startup, but that doesn't mean they're completely incompetent. They made some mistakes. It happens. Startups are hard work, as most of us acknowledge, and part the reason many of us love being in startups is the learning experience involved.

Wellsphere's plan is to get user feedback on the site from users and improve. They have a long way to go, but they are definitely motivated to do it.

In my opinion, I saw these things from the inside:

1) There was not a core group of in-house engineers working full-time on the product from beginning to end. There was a lot of turn over, which made it hard to keep consistent progress and polish the features.

2) There was a very unrealistic expectation about when the site would be ready. Rather than determining how long engineering would need to produce the product, it seemed that a date was picked and we went forward with it, regardless of the state of progress.

3) Part of the reason a bad deadline was picked, was because the requirements were not flushed out for engineering to determine how long it would take. So, during development, core concepts about about the site's functionality changed several times.

4) A UI person was not hired to help ensure the site was usable.

The team of people that worked on this site gave it all they had. We came a long way in a very short time. It just wasn't enough time, and the requirements were not defined.

It seems that there are a lot of disgruntled ex-employees commenting here. Now that I am an ex-employee, I can say that Ron and Dave were good to me. Yes, they expected a lot from me, and yes, there were times when I felt like I was being pushed too far, but they were good to me. I'm not sure what happened with the other employees, but I know how I was treated and I know it was good.

Finally, I want to make it clear that I chose to make this post, and no one else asked me to do it. I just felt compelled to share my view since there was so much negativity here.

Jon, I know who you are. I know what you’ve been through. Sadly, you don’t. Not trying to sound arrogant here, but you were used by Rave. You were underpaid. You were lied to about deadlines. You were given unreasonable expectations. How do I know this? I went through the same thing. I was there for many many many months.

These founders are deserving of personal attacks. You wouldn’t _believe_ the shit they pulled on people. Lying about them being fired. Forging documents to Administaff about firing/resignation. Putting the wrong dates on forms (always in their favor… I know of at least 3 instances of this). Changing contracts on file (I have first-hand knowledge of at least 2 instances of this). They are completely unscrupulous. Check the date on your forms. Trust me.

As for taking this up with them directly, believe me, I tried. I tried for many months. I tried until I was blue in the face. Ron and Dave are in complete denial. Ask them about the input they solicited from the employees. It covered this with them honestly and directly. They chose to ignore it. They have their heads in the sand. Ron Gutman is a sociopath. Don’t believe it? Read this and tell me if it isn’t him 100%. ( http://www.exit...rtcls/socio.htm ). We can’t figure Dave out. Seems like he was once his own man, but his free will has been subsumed by Ron.

We tried. It was hopeless. Their MO is to get new faces in the door and try the same old shit again, make another 2 months of progess, every one quits, then they try again. Ron will tell you people are too negative. The fact is he drives people insane.

It was definitely to early to release that product. It was ridiculous from the beginning. Do you even know what they were doing 3 months ago? Something completely different. Not even a consumer based app. They chase whatever idea fancies them today.

Ron’s first startup? Come on. Surely he’s regaled you with tales of how he’s started 7 or 8 companies, all but one successfully. Where are they? What are their names? Where are the hordes of good people who helped him and still want to work with and for him? He’s a liar. He has no clue how to manage people. If he did, they wouldn’t have had 30 people (REALLY, ITS TRUE) in and out of the door in calendar year 2006. He’s just batty.

I’ve worked for countless startups. Wellsphere is the most bumbling brew of incompetence and disaster I’ve ever seen. They are rookies among rookies. Their only saving grace is that they do somehow manage to attract fabulous employees, which pulls them along for some time. But they inevitably leave when they realize how moronic the people steering the ship are. I know at least 8 of these people. We still talk. We will probably be friends and colleagues for years to come. We spend most of our time laughing about our experiences at Hellsphere.

There was a core group of engineers. Really good ones. Stanford. MIT, etc. They got fed up and quit. Found work the next day. Why waste your time? There were no features to polish. Ron couldn’t keep the ship pointed in the same direction for more than four weeks at a time. How can you be successful in that environment?

Unrealistic expectations? Hello! Hi there! I’m Ron. This is my friend Dave. We want you to build this in four weeks. You agreed to this deadline. It has to be done by then because that’s when we have to launch. Bugger if it’s not possible. We can do it if we believe. Have some of this magical fairy dust!

The requirements weren’t flushed out because they never point at the same goal long enough to develop a sense of what they are building.

They’ve had several good UI people. They quit too. Some in tears at how awful Ron and Dave are. They were truly heartless. Who makes their employees cry? Seriously now? Who? More people throw shoes!

I commend the team that stuck it out. I met them once. They seemed like solid guys. If only we could have warned them what they were getting into. We tried. There was no way they could know. We are just disgruntled employees. Maybe now through this shared experience we can come to understand one another.

Jon, I’ve heard you’re good at what you do. We’re going to look you up. Sorry you got dragged across the country for this, but don’t worry. There are tons of brilliant, smart people to work with in this town… you just got drafted by the wrong team.

Good People, unite!
I truly believe that all people in this world are fundamentally good.
Thankfully, many people choose to take their good energy and direct it
to ward helping other people live a better life. They devote their
time, energy and resources to improve other peoples’ lives in some
way.

Directing our and others’ energy toward doing good (rather than
channeling it in negative, destructive or unpleasant ways) is
something that the Wellsphere team is highly committed to. We
encourage anyone who feels frustrated, sad, disenchanted, confused,
gloomy or depressed to try this: help someone else be healthier and
happier. Though it sounds counterintuitive to help others just at the
time when you want to focus on yourself, when you help others, it
actually makes YOU feel better. Plus, all the warm, positive regard
your receive from the people you help (like all the wonderful e-mails
we’ve been getting from community members, thanking us and encouraging
us to continue doing what we’re doing), will help to convert any bad
energy you may have accumulated to good energy that will make YOU a
happier individual.

Wow Ron -that’s amazing insight. I’m moved to tears with your words. You are a serious genius. I’m so glad you are so warm, positive, and HONEST. That must be why everyone loves you and all the people who have worked with you praise you so highly. Keep up the good work!!

Ron,

You spread so much goodwill and happiness that there are dozens of people who could have written the personal attacks that have been posted across multiple sites. I have not seen any proof that you ever produced a happy employee (from your previous 8 businesses). It seems impossible that such a person could exist.

You are a hypocrite.

You know, if you keep saying something it makes it true -- even if your actions are completely orthogonal to your statements.

For those of you reading this to whom Mr. Gutman has spoken, proclaiming his innocence, I suspect he has told you that he's "sick about it" and quoted "spirals of negativity" and other dribble. He'll pretend that he has personal insight by proclaiming that he made bad hiring decisions. You'll listen to him and empathize. His friend Dave will do the same and talk about how personally hurt they are. Once they have done all of that, please know that you're being played. All of the employees they have upset are upset because of personal actions: they lied and manipulated talented, trusting, and knowledgable people.

Incompetence is forgivable. This is not about poor business acumen or a lack of understanding about tech start ups. This is about pathologic behavior that has negative and lasting effects on the lives of well-intentioned people.

Employees and people who have inside knowledge who have posted here are doing so to warn others. Prior to now, if you would search Ron/Yaron Gutman your search would derive little to nothing (even though he has started 4/6/8 companies -- which number you hear depends on which version of the truth he is on). Now when he drops the credible names of luminaries like Mark Leslie, Eric Benhammoud, Woodrow Myers, etc. you won't be walking in the dark like we were.

Enough said, and consider yourself warned.

I was going to go to explore the possibility of working at Wellsphere...thankfully I read this blog first!

Yes- thank you for the information as well. I too was looking into wellsphere as a potential job possibility, but now I dont think I will waste my time. If this many past employees have bad things to say about the management, then it's probably not a good idea to get involved.

Ron, I retract every good thing I ever said about you.

If you take a look at the facts - an unprofessional, bug ridden site, unbelievable amounts of turnover, an army of disgruntled former employees, little about Ron's previous managerial experience, and so on - it's clear that there is something very wrong at Wellsphere.

NOTE!!
These guys Ron, Dave, and Geoff took another step and now as they probably started to run out of money they simply fraud vendors to work and reduce the amounts dramaticaly post factum. If you don't sign a waiving letter and agree to compromise they threat they won't pay at all. Please write email ASAP to law222@hotmail.com if you suffer or suffered from them. A law suit is about to be filed in the next few days.

Hi, Good to see were in the same area )...
There is another Lawsuit against Wellsphere, It appears They are using Code that was deliberately not payed, so they have a copyright isuue. There is also some publications & interviews going on in some major newspapers and sites. If you have anything to say or If you worked in Wellsphere in the past please mail us @ lawsuit.wellsphere@gmail.com ... Stay tuned )...

We felt compelled to add our comment here because we were personally and professionally hurt by what was written in some of these comments, and we thought this would be a good opportunity to describe openly and honestly who we really are and what our company is really all about, and invite you to (please!) contact us if you have any questions.

All of us at Wellsphere share a deep commitment to our mission of helping people live healthier, happier lives. We are a group of positive, hardworking, caring people who very much enjoy each other’s company, and are dedicated to helping one another and to achieving our goals. Our ‘WellSpace’ in San Mateo is a bright, energetic, fun environment (we even have a small exercise room and beautiful views of the green hills and the Bay!). We recently launched our Beta site based on substantial research and feedback from our alpha community. We implemented a scalable technology that is designed to support our growing community. We are delighted to watch our members help and support each other everyday in their quests for well-being. We are very proud of the progress we’ve made and the growth of our community, though we know there is much more to do. We think our site speaks for itself, and invite you to visit us at http://www.wellsphere.com.

We are committed to continuing to improve Wellsphere everyday and we enjoy responding to the feedback from our community. We greatly appreciate all constructive advice about how we can improve the site and our users’ experience. Please feel free to share your thoughts (or hate mail if you must :-) ) with us at wecare@wellsphere.com. If you would like to learn more about our company, our mission, and our values firsthand, please reach out to any of us directly. You can reach us by phone at (650) 345-2100, or by email at the addresses below.

Our core team (alphabetical by last name):

Kathleen Donahue
kathleen.donahue@wellsphere.com

Ron Gutman
ron.gutman@wellsphere.com

Dave Kashen
dave.kashen@wellsphere.com

Ivan Marchenko
ivan.marchenko@wellsphere.com

Sastry Nanduri
sastry.nanduri@wellsphere.com

Larisa Rozentals
larisa.rozentals@wellsphere.com

Geoff Rutledge, MD, PhD
geoff.rutledge@wellsphere.com

Personally, I have not experienced what others may have; rather I’ve had a very positive experience with the company, Ron and Dave. I enjoy working for Wellsphere – its nice to come into the an office where I can eat breakfast with others or at my desk, Katie, the well-dog, says hello to everyone (she’s so happy and excited – she really reminds you what life is all about), we enjoy a casual weekly lunch with everyone together, fruit and other healthy items are provided for us (although Kathleen and I would really enjoy some dark chocolate), and the office has a great view of the Bay Area.

From my experience, both Ron and Dave care about their company and their employees. You know you have a great team of employees working for you when you are instructed to leave the building promptly at 5:00 pm to repair the AC and none of us wanted to leave – it took Ron and the AC company over an hour to get everyone to go home. What can I say… I enjoy the people, the culture, and working with Katie.

Read the comments, both good and bad. I can only speak for myself and tell those interested that overall, as an employee since the beginning of April, I've had a very positive, productive time with Wellsphere. We have a great crew of people, both employees and contractors with whom I interact regularly. We've formed a tight, fun team that keeps on moving forward together to improve our product. As a user-interface designer, I love hearing back from people about the site and how we can improve it for them. Yes, being a young company, we have a ways to go, but we are listening, learning, and steadily enhancing the site. So, to burst the hyperbolic bubble of those who have never worked here, yet seem to be bent on creating/spreading hearsay, this is the current atmosphere.

My experience at Wellsphere has been very pleasant. Wellsphere has a great mission, a fun working environment and a strong team of passionate, positive-minded individuals. As a technologist, I am very excited at the opportunity to build a product that will help millions of people lead a happier and healthier lifestyle.

Since the day we founded our company, we have always taken the time to listen to people- from the deep research we conducted on how to help people make healthier lifestyle choices to developing our initial prototype to our focus groups and feedback from our alpha community, serving people has been at the heart of our company. Our recently launched Beta site is built on top of all of this great input and we will continue to listen and continuously improve Wellsphere in our efforts to help people live healthier, happier lives. I would like to thank the people who have taken the time to help us improve our site by providing serious, thoughtful and meaningful feedback. I also want to warmly thank my fellow employees at Wellsphere for joining me in working toward our shared mission and for making the challenging job of bringing innovation to the world enjoyable and rewarding.

In particular, I would like to thank my co-founder Dave, who has been working with me from the day we founded the company (and even before), around the clock to make our dream come true – to help millions of people live healthier, happier lives. I also want to give a huge kudos to Dr. Geoff Rutledge, a great friend and our CIO - without whom we would not have been able to bring the beta site we are so proud of to life. Finally, I would like to give the warmest of words to our wonderful, smart, dedicated team including Sastry, Kathleen, Ivan, Larisa, Nikki, Paul, Vadym, Irina, Jeff, Phil, and all the others who are working to make our vision a reality.

It takes a lot of work to make a real change in the world, but we are determined to do so and enjoying ourselves along the way. It is pretty amazing to see how a strong culture can enable a small, committed group to make remarkable things happen.

I invite anyone in the greater community to write to me, call me or meet with me so we can have a frank, open discussion about the Wellsphere community. I will be delighted to tell you more about Wellsphere, our mission and why I strongly believe in dedicating my life to helping others live well and be happy. Please feel free to write to me at ron.gutman@wellsphere.com or call me at (650) 345-2100.

Hi, I’m Dave, co-founder of Wellsphere. Since founding this company with Ron I’ve been working incredibly hard, sacrificing most of my time with my friends and family because I believe in the importance of what we’re doing and our potential to make a significant positive impact on people’s lives. Having become a much more active person myself about 5 years ago, I know firsthand how much of a difference it can make in someone’s life to make this kind of a lifestyle change. I’m a much happier, more energized person because of it. It saddens me to see people spending their time and energy to harm us and undermine our efforts when our team is working so hard to build a great company and do good in the world. We have a great, hardworking group of employees who really care about helping others. Our team has a lot of fun together and we’re excited about our new Beta site and all of the kind, supportive comments we’ve received from our community members. We stand behind Ron, our CEO, and appreciate his passion, commitment and extraordinary work ethic. Of course we’ve had our share of roadblocks and setbacks (it’s a startup after all), but we’re committed to building a great company and making a difference in the world. I’d be more than happy to talk to anyone who has questions about Wellsphere (or anyone who wants to get more active!)

Please contact me at dave.kashen@wellsphere.com.

After seeing the cynically negative comments about my company, I feel compelled to offer my experiences with our company and with our CEO. I'll restrict my comments to my personal thoughts and observations, which are based on my experiences here over the past year. I am a
physician and technologist who left a medical practice and executive management position in hospital information systems to join Wellsphere. I was attracted to Wellsphere because I thought the success of this company would achieve more good than I could hope to achieve as a physician caring for patients one at a time. We can only be successful if we are able to help people achieve healthier lifestyles. My previous business experience included building Healtheon/WebMD's consumer website; Wellsphere offered the opportunity to take a great leap forward, from a website that mostly provides disease information, to a modern web service that would create a community that enables people to be well.

Our CEO, Ron Gutman, expects a lot from all of us, and he delivers a lot in return. In fact, it was my realization that he is profoundly committed to the mission of helping people that made me want to join Wellsphere. Mostly, he challenges us to achieve great things. This is good, and helps establish a culture here that sets us up for success. Our main challenge is to grow the team with other smart, motivated people who have a similarly positive view on life, and who want to participate in what we are trying to accomplish.

We have developed a delightful culture at the company -- we are now in a new office in San Mateo, where the light, openness, view, and shared workspace provide a pleasing environment. True to the mission of the company, we have our own gym in the office (and full shower), so we often have management meetings while spinning on our stationary bikes. I'm able to bring my hyper-charged Belgian Malinois, Katie, to work with me every day, and she provides a point of relaxation, charm, and playfulness to the office.

I'm happy to discuss Wellsphere with anyone who would like to know more! Feel free to call me at (650) 345-2100, or reach me via email at geoff.rutledge@wellsphere.com.