"The only guarantee in life is that it will end," is the tagline used by a new Boulder startup that aims to engage younger generations in estate planning by making the subject of death less taboo.
A group of technology and finance professionals — most of them in Boulder — teamed up with an end-of-life chaplain to incorporate Exit Plan Inc. in December. The group is raising money to design and develop a prototype of its mobile application.
The aptly titled DeathApp helps users create personalized end-of-life plans, including leading them through life insurance plans, trusts and wills, funeral arrangements and mental preparedness.
Creators of the app didn't shrink away from discussing death. One motto it uses is, "This body will be a corpse. Prepare for the inevitable." There's a reason for the straightforward messaging, said Corey Kohn, the co-founder and CEO of the Boulder tech cooperative Dojo4 who's leading the creation of DeathApp.
Kohn and the other members of Exit Plan Inc. are leaning into the "death positivity" movement to get more 20- to 40-year-olds involved in end-of-life planning. Death positivity refers to a social movement that encourages people to talk more openly about death and dying and not view the conversation as morbid or taboo.
According to a 2022 survey by Caring.com, 67% of Americans have no estate plan. And despite younger people having more interest in end-of-life planning following the Covid-19 pandemic, most services are targeted toward older adults, Kohn said. Those platforms tend to use a more euphemistic tone when it comes to discussing death — something the team at Exit Plan Inc. wanted to get away from.
"With a lot of the services, they'd say 'passing away' and not 'dying,'" Kohn said. "We take a much more head-on approach that really appeals to a much younger audience."
Kohn acknowledged that the straightforward tone might not be for everyone.
"For some people, they don't want to think about it and might think it's disturbing," she said. "There are other services that would be great for them."
Kohn had the idea for DeathApp last year, when her friend and end-of-life chaplain, Angela Lutzenberger, asked Kohn for help to digitize end-of-life documents for her terminal clients, who were asked to fill out the standard do not resuscitate forms and other paperwork.
As Kohn was helping her, she started to think of a better way to handle death preparation.
"After getting into the weeds a little bit, I realized the barrier to entry for this stuff is so intense," Kohn said.
DeathApp uses multiple-choice quizzes and prompts for contemplation to help users put together personalized plans. It works by using similar engagement functions as a social media feed and provides content that is customized for each person's end-of-life plan.
To build out its full prototype of DeathApp, Exit Plan Inc. recently launched an investment campaign through the crowdfunding platform Wefunder. The startup had raised about $18,000 of its $100,000 goal as of Thursday.
According to projections shared on WeFunder, Exit Plan Inc. expects to have 10,000 paid users in its first year.
