O-Bits: Death and Disruption Edition

We’re all for modernizing the funeral business around the O-Bits niche, but we’re skeptical about the “innovations” Ian Strang of Beyond outlines at Forbes. He’s determined to disrupt the industry, creating what he calls “a consumer brand for death.” Fresh of his success introducing fee-charging ATMs to the United Kingdom (how he missed out on the Nobel Prize for that, we don’t know), he’s looking to apply what he learned to the world of death. Among his ideas: contacting people who have recently attended funerals with funeral business emails. “The people who attend a funeral,” he says,  “start thinking about their own mortality.” Because nothing makes event more dignified and caring than the knowledge that signing the guestbook  is just like clicking “yes” on the “terms and conditions” page when you install new software. What’s next? A meter next to every grave charging mourners by the minute?

Why are millennial entrepreneurs looking at the funeral business? This report from Grand View Research gives you an idea. The  worldwide mortuary equipment market is expected to reach nearly one-and-a-quarter billion dollars by 2025.

How does this work out for the consumer? If you said “not good,” you’re right! The average cost of a funeral in the United States is nearly $10,000.

Steven Mirkin

Steven Mirkin’s diverse career has taken him from politics to pop culture to high art, offering him a front row seat to some of the most fascinating events and personalities of our time: writing speeches, fundraising appeals and campaign materials for Ed Koch, John Heinz and independent presidential candidate John B. Anderson; chronicling the punk/new wave scenes in New York and London; interviewing musicians such as Elton John, John Lydon and Buck Owens; profiling modern masters Julian Schnabel, Paul Schrader and Jonathan Safran Foer; and writing for TV shows including 21, The Chamber, Let's Make A Deal, and Rock Star: INXS.