www.whenimgone.com
I had a business idea some time ago that I’ve been giving some more serious thought of late. The business would offer services to people immediately after their death. So once notified of a death, the service would send out emails to loved ones, composed by the user. Maybe online payments could be made, again at the request of the user.
The premise behind the idea is that wills are seen as overly officious documents, that don’t necessarily address the human nature of death. This offers a way of people communicating with the living after they’ve gone.
My main sticking point with the idea is obtaining reliable information about someone’s death. It’s not as if the user could send you an email confirming their own death. And relying on notification from a next of kin compromises the secrecy with which someone could register with the service (not to mention the fact that in certain circumstances, the next of kin may have died simultaneously).
I need to do some delving into how death registrations are recorded, and whether this would offer a reliable means for validating people’s death.
There’s an amusing sketch on Little Britain in which two police officers go to the wrong Mrs. Jones’ house to inform her of her husband’s death in a car accident, only to be directed two doors down to that of the other Mrs. Jones. Then there’s the ensuing laughter over the confusion. Probably a mistake you don’t want to make in real life.
It sounds like a morbid idea, but the whole premise of it is to ease the pain of death for the folks left behind.
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There’s money to be made in death alright. I had a business venture idea along similar lines a short while ago while trying to decide how to make my millions – namely, making portraits out of ashes.
A brief overview would be thus: people would supply the ashes of their loved ones, along with a favourite picture or other image. This could then be blown up (as in expanded, not detonated), converted to a monochrome image and transferred to canvas where the black areas would be coated with an appropriate fixative. The ashes could then be sprinkled over and the surplus shaken off, much like a child’s glitter picture. A well chosen poem or quote could be embossed underneath and a tasteful frame supplied, and hey presto! A picture of your loved one immortalised by the remains of the very shell in which they walked the earth!
Might work…(?)
It’s a stroke of genius, Mr. C.! I think your target market is slightly smaller than mine, but there will certainly be freakish people out there keen to have their loved ones looking down on them from atop the fireplace, and your margins would be nice and meaty, I bet!
Interesting Dan. A couple of observations – first, if I had a business idea, the last thing I would do is post on the net for the world at large to see/copy. Second, wills may be “overly officious”, but do have the advantage of being legally enforceable. An email or a random deposit of cash, alas does not. That’s not to say you couldn’t get round the existing law in some form – you might be able to have the unsent email witnessed in the appropriate manner first, but would need to make it unamendable thereafter (unless it is amended with the express wishes of the sender and re-witnessed).
Not insurmountable problems I’m sure, but it’s perhaps not as straighforward as it first appears.