Three University of Washington students recently won the $25,000 grand prize in a start-up competition hosted by the University of Washington’s Foster School Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship.  And, they did so with a pre-launch Death Care start-up they have named AfterLife Listings.

Clara Kobashigawa, one of the three students was mentioned in this article from Geek Wire Startups that “the idea originated after her family had to say goodbye to a loved one and was shocked to to see the lack of price transparency and information online in regards to purchasing a burial plot.”  She went on to mention that “we hope to act as a resource for families going through this process and to simplify the stress of finding a burial plot.”

Another founding team member, Brendan Tran says, “(the) goal was to create a seamless and straightforward environment where users from all technical backgrounds could navigate the website without any frustrations.”

From our point of view at Funeral Director Daily, it appears that the AfterLife Listings web-site, that you can see here, will help cemeteries market burial plots, and could have cremation niches, lawn crypts, and more included.  It also appears, from what we read that the young entrepreneurs hope to branch out to sell other death care items to customers who may utilize the web-site to purchase cemetery property.

Here is what co-founder Aidan Shev, said about offering other products in the Geek Wire article, “We believe that gaining a foothold in the burial market will allow us to rapidly branch out into offering caskets, flowers, green burials, and other funeral services on our website.  We hope to be the one-stop-shop for afterlife celebrations.

Funeral Director Daily take:  Good for these students.  Entrepreneurship is alive and well and it seems to be opening up even more so to new ideas in the death care business. . . . I think of companies like Recompose and Parting Stone who have both found a niche that has potential for growth.

Maybe AfterLife Listings can help some cemeteries that seem pretty moribund with burial plot sales as earth burial has declined and be that next Death Care start-up to find success.

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