\n<\/p>\n
If death and taxes are inevitable, why are companies so prepared for taxes, but not for death?<\/p>\n
\u201cI lost both of my parents in college, and it didn\u2019t initially spark this interest to go start a business around my experience,\u201d said Bereave<\/a> co-founder Elijah Linder.<\/p>\n In the immediate aftermath of Linder\u2019s loss, founding a company would have been a long shot. But in 2020, when co-founder Matt Tyner\u2019s mother died, the two of them got the idea to build something that could have made their experiences even marginally less awful.<\/p>\n \u201cI had the entrepreneur bug \u2013 I just waited until I saw a problem and a mission worth going after,\u201d Linder said.<\/p>\n Along with CEO Justin Clifford, the Indianapolis-based team conducted a series of interviews with people experiencing loss to get a better idea of where they could make the most impact.<\/p>\n \u201cIn these conversations, people would say, \u2018Here\u2019s who we lost, here\u2019s when we lost them.\u2019 And then they would say, \u2018Here\u2019s how my manager reacted,\u2019\u201d Clifford told TechCrunch. \u201cAnd it was like, \u2018Wait a minute, why are you talking about your manager right now?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n It became clear to Bereave that people were struggling to navigate grief in the workplace. So Bereave built a B2B product to sell to employers, which they can offer their employees in times of need. The platform catalogs resources for people experiencing loss, walking them through the steps of closing out a loved one\u2019s affairs. So far, the company has about 12 clients who pay an annual fee based on how many employees they have \u2013 a company with 100 employees would pay $1,000 per year, whereas a company with 1,000 employees would pay $5,500.<\/p>\n \u201cMost death tech companies that are going into B2B are very niche \u2013 like, they\u2019re counseling, or they\u2019re maybe focusing on one or two pieces of the puzzle,\u201d Clifford said. \u201cWhat we\u2019re trying to do is bring everything together to make sure that there is one source for the businesses.\u201d<\/p>\n The mental toll of grief can be compounded by the overwhelming list of tasks to do when someone dies \u2013 the living relatives of the deceased have to navigate taxes, insurance cancellations, credit card and bank account transfers, wills, and more.<\/p>\n \u201cThe whole idea is, you don\u2019t necessarily have to think,\u201d Clifford said. \u201cYou\u2019ve got a whole checklist in front of you.\u201d<\/p>\n In a crisis, these sorts of checklists are invaluable, which is why this model exists in other HR products. Tall Poppy<\/a>, a company that offers digital safety guidance<\/a> for employees navigating online harassment and hacks, also uses step-by-step checklists.<\/p>\n Beyond providing a few days of time off for bereavement, and maybe some counseling sessions, employers don\u2019t often have much support in this area. So, on the employer side, Bereave offers resources that outline how to support an employee through a loss, or what to do if an employee passes away. These resources are also helpful for team members, including modules that explain how to sensitively talk about loss, or even what kinds of food to provide a grieving family.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re planning for everything else in the business. What happens if somebody goes on maternity leave, or some other sort of FMLA?\u201d Clifford said. \u201cThere are things that happen that are planned, and this is just not one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n The decision to build software to sell to employers is clever. HR departments are more likely to seek out and pay for these sorts of resources than individual people, and as Bereave\u2019s founders learned in their research, the funeral industry is a bit slow to adapt to offerings like this. But it\u2019ll take time before Bereave can grow into the service it aspires to be.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re in the midst of a fundraise right now to be able to take that cobbled together system and turn it into enterprise-grade software, and really be able to talk about automation for HR folks and managers,\u201d Clifford said. \u201cSo when these things happen, HR, teammates and managers can just execute. They don\u2019t have to think about what to do.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n