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WakeUpNow, a Provo-based MLM that has received widespread attention from a recent episode of This American Life, announced Monday, Feb. 16, 2015 they are ceasing operations. SAMMY JO HESTER, Daily Herald

Sammy Jo Hester, Daily Herald

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WakeUpNow, a Provo-based MLM that has received widespread attention from a recent episode of This American Life, announced Monday, Feb. 16, 2015 they are ceasing operations. SAMMY JO HESTER, Daily Herald

Sammy Jo Hester

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PROVO — A Provo-based multi-level marketing company announced Monday that it will cease operations effective immediately.

WakeUpNow, a “network marketing” company located near the Riverwoods in Provo with an international reach, announced Monday that the company will “cease all network marketing operations in the United States.”

A letter from the current CEO, Phil Polich, posted on the company’s Facebook page, says the former CEO, Kirby Cochran, took advantage of the office of CEO.

“Kirby Cochran had made decisions that put the company on an irreparable negative trajectory; and sadly, he went to great lengths to keep many of these decisions secret from the rest of the management team and board of directors,” Polich’s statement said.

Network marketing companies are common in Utah Valley, but WakeUpNow had gotten recent attention nationally for being on the popular podcast, This American Life, distributed on National Public Radio stations.

The company sells products ranging from energy drinks to financial management to language learning.

In the December episode of This American Life, reporters Bianca Giaever and Brian Reed said it was difficult to tell what WakeUpNow actually offers, even after attending the company’s conference.

“Even after being at this conference for several hours, if you put a gun to my head and asked me what WakeUpNow is, what it does, I still don’t think I could’ve told you,” Reed said in the episode.

Reed and Giaever interviewed the company’s Chief Marketing Officer, who said the company was taking a different direction, which is alluded to in Monday’s statement.

This American Life reporters also interviewed Robert FitzPatrick, a researcher who specializes in pyramid schemes. FitzPatrick said he would call WakeUpNow a pyramid scheme and even an economic cult.

“It’s not uncommon to see companies like this flash and crash,” FitzPatrick said in an interview with the Daily Herald. “What makes WakeUpNow significant is the wild enthusiasm that it generated among young people. It was not just young people, but it was often people of color.”

“WakeUpNow created a sense of extraordinary excitement and hope among those people, that they would find wealth and create success through that company–even though the company itself had disclosed that 96 percent of the people in it never made any money at all,” FitzPatrick said.

FitzPatrick calls the company’s pattern a “flash and crash,” which is what happened to WakeUpNow, he said.

“It flashed — it was the hottest thing. It attracted a huge number of people from other MLMs,” he said. “But soon enough, reality sets in and they crash.”

In the podcast, Harris denied labels like “cult” and “pyramid scheme.”

The company’s statement from Monday says Polich and President Jason Elrod “worked diligently for the last 120 days doing everything we possibly could to turn it around,” but ultimately blame it on former CEO Cochran.

“Kirby Cochran’s deceptive actions had put the company in a position from which it could not recover. In the end, his decision for a privileged few outweighed the incredible heart and dedication of the many,” the letter says.

FitzPatrick said most MLMs go out of business in the same fashion as WakeUpNow.

“Whenever you see these companies go down, they always have scapegoats,” he said.

As part of his research, FitzPatrick said he has watched dozens of videos promoting WakeUpNow, and that before he was ousted, he was presented as a “godlike figure.”

“The audience had been excited to almost a level of ecstasy in anticipation of [Kirby Cochran], who was going to bring financial salvation,” FitzPatrick said.

Cochran also filed individual bankruptcy earlier this month.

WakeUpNow said some of their products will still be available. It was unclear from the statement what the operations outside the United States will be.

“Effective immediately, WakeUpNow will cease all network marketing operations in the United States. We will continue to sell our products, including Awaken Thunder and the WUN Fit line of products. We will diligently work to fulfill all financial obligations of the company,” the letter says.