HELPING YOU THROUGH DIFFICULT TIMES: PEACEFULLY.COM
Peacefully is an after-loss startup that helps you navigate the difficulties of losing a loved one. I led the team to create a platform that provides essential resources to grieving loved one while also exuding empathy towards the user, earning high customer satisfaction scores. The platform is now publicly available in the US
* Due to confidentiality agreements, this page contains shortened summaries of my work
MY ROLE
At Peacefully, I owned and managed the resources and guides divisions to effectively introduce the importance of end-of-life planning to customers and positioned Peacefully as a solution provider. I made sure the website and articles were designed to quickly lead curious users to discover the product's value proposition. Since Peacefully was a startup, I took on multiple hats, also conducting user studies and leveraging my data science skills to analyze it. I used the results to iterate upon the existing platform and significantly improve user experience. I also prioritized features and created roadmaps as part of the product planning and pitch to investors.
PROBLEM -> SOLUTION
End-of-life planning is not something on most people's minds, especially if you are relatively young. The death of a loved one marks of period of mourning and grief, yet the monetary cost of losing a loved one can run up thousands of dollars, and there may be many legal implications especially in the case of an unexpected death. This presents problems for many people when they need it least, and when they need help most:
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Funeral costs can be extremely costly and many families cannot afford services
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Lack of legal framework in the event of a death can lead to problems for surviving family members
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Threat of stolen identity, family conflicts, fear of being left behind all affect survivors and people before they die
We conducted user interviews on hundreds of participants to gauge their thoughts and emotions on end-of-life planning. While the results are confidential, the problems listed above were all but confirmed. Before pitching to investors, we completed market research and competitive analysis to estimate our position in the market.
With Peacefully, we wanted to provide a solution to these problems, mainly by helping customers plan for end of life situations and help them organize and complete tasks when a death occurs so that they can grieve without worrying about legal and logistical issues.
USE CASES
This page is part of the current onboarding for Peacefully. There were three main user personas for end-of-life tasks and planning:
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Someone who lost a lost a loved one
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Someone who is planning for themselves
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Someone who wants to help their loved one plan
Each persona has their own priorities, and have the product funneled and refined according to their own user journey and user flow, respectively. For example, on the left is what someone who is carrying out tasks after the loss of a loved one sees, on the right is what they see when planning for themselves.
GENERAL AVAILABILITY: KEY FEATURES
The onboarding process of the app is fairly short. You enter details and immediately create an account, after which you are taken to the first step of choosing your specific scenario. Planning for death involves disclosing sensitive information. Thus, the sign up process includes a side menu assuring the user of their data privacy, and 2-FA for internal security and to make them comfortable. While the user flow for a selected scenario is different, the platform itself contains some core features, some of which are captured below:
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Legal planning: Users can search for lawyers and legal documents of loved ones who passed away or create and manage their own legal plan
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Funeral planning: The platform helps users to plan funeral services
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Estate planning: Users can search how to manage assets such as houses, vehicles
MARKETING AND SALES FUNNEL
Peacefully offers tiered pricing models, with more features costing the user more to unlock. Subscriptions also come with discounts with partners of the platform.
For the sales funnel, Peacefully sells B2C through community engagement with its articles and resources, as well as B2B2C through employer plans.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
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I developed a passion for building products that solve real-world problems and help users overcome negative emotions
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I owned the consideration phase of product marketing, and grew my knowledge of sales funnels
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I grew a desire to build products for humans - I interned during peak COVID-19, at a time when people needed services like this more than ever. The entire experience made me feel more humane
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I learned to use data analytics to validate user research