How Espresso Labs developed a strategy for a company that comforts people in some of their most difficult moments.

 

Em Memória (Portuguese for “In Memorian”) is a Death Tech – a technology company that provides services related to people’s passing away.

The founders were motivated by personal experiences and decided to invest in a project that embraced the loved ones of deceased people in a meaningful, comforting, and tender way.

Context

The grief-related market has received large investments in the last few years. In Brasil only, this market already includes over a hundred companies aiming for death care. Given the sensitive nature of the topic, any product developed for this segment needs to treat the subject with both respect and humanity to bring comfort in these difficult moments.

 

Em Memória is a disruptive endeavor, which harnesses the potential of technology to increase the possibilities of comfort for grieving families. Em Memória believes in placing the customer as the center of the business, providing a service based on empathy, respect, and humane treatment throughout the experience within the platform.

Understanding the funeral industry in Brazil

250

funeral homes

750

cemeteries

147

crematoriums

New Grief Platform

Paulo Marques created a platform for paying homeage to the deceased.

Instagram’s Memorial

Instagram rushes to launch a memorial feature for deceased users.

Beyond Facebook

This is the new social network that allows for homeages to deceased relatives.

AI uses for Grief

AI promises a chance to keep in touch with those who passed away.

The Challenge

Em Memória contacted us with an MVP already structured. However, they still had the challenge of understanding the best strategy for the product, which needed to take into consideration the particularities of this type of business, the needs of the people who would use it, and the environment in which the service would be launched. All of this also required an understanding of the current death care ecosystem and existing related solutions.

The challenge of putting together a platform able to help the grieving in the difficult task of expressing their feelings in a moment of loss, while experiencing and carrying their grief, within a business that could be viable and profitable, was the beginning of the challenge brought to us by the client.

“Not all wounds are meant to heal. We need each other to remember that grief is this multitasking emotion. Grief doesn’t happen in this vacuum, it happens alongside and mixed in with all of these other emotions.”

Nora McInerny Writer and Podcaster

““In Japanese Zen, there is a term “Shoiji”, which translates as “birth-death”. There is no separation between life and death other than a thin line that connects the two. Birth, or the joyous, wonderful, vital parts of life, and death, those things we want to get rid of, are said to be faced equally. In this new life that I find myself in, I am doing my best to embrace this concept as I move forward with grieving."”

Jason B. RosenthalPublic Speaker

Espresso’s Methodology

 

Em Memória greatly benefited from the Research methodology, for mapping the circumstances around the product, and from Espresso Inception – a methodology particular to Espresso Labs – to connect the business goals to real user needs.

Espresso Labs Research phase started with the understanding of the business model, its interests, and objectives, which enabled the creation of a vision for the product.

Our team also performed a deep usability analysis of the MVP, which identified several improvements that could be made in the user flows and overall experience.

1. Research

We also delivered an extensive netnography study, a collection of data related to interactions and dynamics between people in digital environments (such as social media), in order to obtain insights into users’ behaviors and needs.

Part of comprehending the death care ecosystem was to research in depth the stages of grief, funeral rituals, search for meaning after losses, and different ways of providing emotional support. This understanding was vital to build the product.

During the challenge, it was essential to understand how people behave in situations of grief as well as to understand in depth how current services related to such moments work and how they are offered.

2. Business Strategy

Espresso Inception was the solution that guided the strategy of the product.

Through the use of Espresso’s own methodology and agile activities, real opportunities for growth were identified. Always taking into consideration the user needs and business goals that structured the whole plan.

The results of the Research and strategy for Em Memória were consolidated as a concise and objective report, which contained the new vision for the product, goals, value propositions, and also the plan of features that enabled the strategy and composed the solution.

The delivery of results validated throughout the project helped the client to establish definitions and selling points to offer partners and visualize new opportunities within their strategy as a digital product.