Richard Zack has started six companies in his lifetime, but his latest was founded with a new energy.
Zack most recently was the founder of Our.News, a Troy tech company whose software allowed users to identify misinformation online. After that closed in June 2021, Zack went on to have his first experience working for a large company as vice president of software at Canonical, a firm based in London.
"[Working there] really gave me, I think, the perspective I was missing," Zack said. "What I discovered about myself is that I like being a tech entrepreneur at a smaller company. ... It was really cool managing more than 100 people, but believe it or believe it or not, that was easier than running a startup."
Now, he's bringing that fresh perspective to his latest startup, Eternal Me.
The business offers an estate planning tool designed to manage digital assets — social media accounts, photos/videos, documents, crypto currency, online businesses and more — after death.
Eternal Me allows users to outline wishes for digital assets, and a digital executor service can carry out those wishes when the time comes. It can be integrated with password management software, but it also has its own password vaults.
Zack said the idea for Eternal Me came when he and his wife were updating their estate plan and Zack realized there wasn't a clear procedure regarding what to do with his online identity.
"What I found was there was really no technology to help me either plan for this or manage it as part of my estate plan. And I looked long and hard and there was nothing out there, so I decided to build it for myself. And in the process, I realized that I was not the only person to have this problem," he said. "So I built the platform, started doing a lot of research, started really getting interested in this question of what happens to digital assets when you pass away."
He spent the last year building Eternal Me. The consumer products were introduced in May.
Zack doesn't disclose specific customer counts, but said the company has gained traction.
The company is launching a product for estate/financial planners in October, which Zack said is the recommended direction for consumers, unless they've put together their own will.
"What we found is that people mostly trust their financial planners, their estate planners with things like this, so we built a platform for financial planners and for estate planners where their clients can manage their digital assets directly as part of their estate or financial plans," Zack said. "It's meant to totally be integrated with all their technology."
Zack is looking for Albany-area partners to help launch the professional product.
Eternal Me was founded by Zack, Jared McKiernan and Kelsie Summers. The company's board consists of three attorneys with experience in estate planning, privacy and cybersecurity.
The plan is to bootstrap Eternal Me for the most part. Zack said they've raised $100,000 and don't intend to raise beyond that.
Eternal Me is a subscription service. It offers a basic free version. An upgraded version for consumers is $149.99 per year. The company doesn't disclose B2B pricing.
The subscription model is because the plans are intended to be updated often.
"Digital assets, we think, are much more living. The estate plan to be effective needs to be updated much more frequently than a traditional estate plan where ... my wife and I didn't update our estate plan for 10 years," Zack said. "Now it's like, I'm logging into my system and updating it almost monthly now."
Prior to Eternal Me and Canonical, Zack founded one of Ohio’s first Internet service providers and later founded tech company Pantek, which served clients in 35 countries.
