There's Life
After Death Via E-Mail
Monday, November 29, 1999
David Lazarus,
Chronicle Staff Writer
The Web site for FinalThoughts makes it
easy for people to compose parting messages to loved ones to
be delivered as e-mail after they die.
A new Web site called FinalThoughts.com
allows users to write and store adios e-mail messages to
friends and family. Upon one's demise, the messages are made
available to recipients.
Todd Michael Krim, a 30-year-old Los
Angeles attorney, said he came up with the idea for
FinalThoughts while on a flight this March from Los Angeles
to London. His plane hit heavy turbulence, and Krim thought
his number was up.
While others in this position might see
their life flash before their eyes, not so with Krim.
``I saw a need for a new service,'' he
said by telephone from his Hollywood office.
That service isn't just e-mail from the
Great Beyond. FinalThoughts also includes
an array of estate-planning features to ensure that Aunt
Agnes gets your collection of Frankie Valli albums, and that
cousin Leo gets your Princess Diana commemorative serving
platter.
No less importantly, the site allows you
to inform your next of kin of funeral or cremation desires,
and to make sure that pets are looked after.
None of this is legally binding, of
course. You need a proper will for that. But Krim figures
that most survivors nevertheless will follow the e-mailed
instructions of the recently departed.
``Our service makes it convenient and easy
to get organized,'' he said. ``It's a lot easier than going
to an attorney.''
Others apparently think so. Although
FinalThoughts was launched only two months ago, and there
hasn't been any advertising or marketing, word of mouth has
attracted ``hundreds'' of members so far, Krim said.
At the moment, all services at the site
are free. But Krim suggested there's a strong likelihood
that, after January, new members will be charged as much as
$100 a month to have their last wishes archived online.
While he emphasized the humanitarian
aspects of FinalThoughts, it's clear that Krim has given a
bit of thought as well to more down-to-earth matters. He
said he expects his startup Internet company to be
profitable within six months and he hopes to go public in
about a year.
``I'm talking to investors and to some
well-known VCs in Silicon Valley,'' Krim said. He declined
to say which ones.
Krim previously worked as in- house
counsel at InsWeb, an online insurance service. But after
his momentary brush with the Grim Reaper while jetting to
London, he has since, as he put it, ``transitioned out of
the legal profession.''
That's a fancy way of saying that Krim set
up shop with his brothers and is now working full time as
president of FinalThoughts Inc.
``I've always been entrepreneurial,'' he
conceded. ``I've always wanted my own business.''
Admittedly, he has come up with a fairly
novel concept.
After you register with FinalThoughts, you
designate a ``guardian angel'' to essentially serve as
executor of your last wishes. That person receives a
password to access your file in the event of your sudden
departure for the afterlife, and subsequently clicks the
appropriate button to activate your sayonara messages.
You can enclose a form with your messages
containing your desired final arrangements. For example,
users can click on whether they want to be buried or
cremated, or whether they would prefer flowers or a donation
to charity.
Another form tells survivors where they
can find your important papers and documents, where your
safety deposit box is located, and what that extra set of
keys in the kitchen drawer is for.
Krim said the average FinalThoughts member
writes between 5 and 10 messages for postmortem delivery.
To prevent alarming recipients with
out-of-the-blue goodbyes, FinalThoughts will instead send
out a generic notice informing them that they have a message
waiting at the site, with instructions for accessing the
e-mail.
This, of course, has the added benefit of
driving additional traffic to FinalThoughts.
Aside from membership fees, Krim said he
hopes to make money by selling advertising and seeking
sponsorship for his services. He also hopes to bring in
extra revenue through e-commerce.
It would not be out of the question, he
said, for FinalThoughts to do business on the side selling
caskets, for example, or cremation urns.
The site also will be adding capabilities
for audio and video messages, which members could create for
a premium fee.
While all this might sound like it's in
dangerously bad taste, Krim insisted that FinalThoughts is,
in fact, a positive thing.
``It's not a death site,'' he stressed.
``Without death, you couldn't have life. I think society is
ready to talk about death and confront death.''
But if someone is willing to pay up to
$100 a month to store assorted adieus online, couldn't that
person just as easily make similar, legally binding
arrangements with an actual lawyer?
Krim paused before answering. ``That's
something to think about,'' he allowed.
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