Planned Departure

Idea

Introduction

Planned Departure makes it easier to organise digital assets during life and manage digital legacy after life.

In an increasingly digital world, it is important to consider how our digital legacy will be administered. Traditional estate planning vehicles, such as wills, mostly deal with the distribution of physical assets. Online accounts and other digital assets are often not included in a traditional will. As a result, online accounts can be lost, locked or abused after the user has passed away.

Planned Departure provides peace of mind by ensuring that online accounts and digital assets are transferred to the right people at the right time.

Planned Departure stores everything in an encrypted format and allows 24/7 access to the user. It uses AES-256 encryption from the industry leader and a cloud based infrastructure for a high level of security and reliability.

Planned Departure is a revenue generating service and is poised for accelerated growth.

Intended impact

Much of our lives has transformed from a physical world to a digital world. Our personal communication has largely moved to emails and facebook, banking and investments are now typically managed online and even mundane things like utility bills have gone online. Paper statements, in any shape or form, are becoming a thing of past.

This transformation has made our digital possessions extremely valuable. Our digital footprints have huge emotional and financial value associated with them. The virtual goods market has already reached 15 billion USD and with the rise of cryptocurrencies such as BitCoin, it is set to become even more valuable.

This continuous digitisation makes succession planning challenging as there are no paper trails for friends and family. Rise of nuclear and distributed families make this problem even bigger. Because of the lack of succession planning, online accounts can become an easy target for identity thieves - as no one is monitoring them. In the US alone, identity of 2.5 million deceased users is stolen every year. It’s a huge emotional and financial burden for friends and family who have to deal with it.

Lack of succession planning also contributes in the billions of unclaimed assets all over the world. There are billions of unclaimed dividends, insurance policies and bank accounts. Lack of information to right beneficiaries is the primary reason for these unclaimed assets.

It’s difficult to keep information about digital assets in a traditional will because of the fast moving pace of the online world. Keeping everything up-to-date in a traditional will becomes a tedious process. On top of that, a will is a public document (once the testator is deceased) and it is not recommended to keep copies of usernames and passwords in a will, as anybody could request a copy of the will.

Planned Departure provides a digital solution to handle digital assets. It is an essential complementary solution for our digital life.

Substantial accomplishments to date

- Planned Departure was part of the London Business School’s prestigious Incubator program and received the Founder’s Award from Deloitte’s Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
- Our first round on Seedrs was closed in just three weeks after raising over 200%.
- In the past few months, we have set-up our advisory board, integrated tools from marketing automation to customer support, launched many innovative features and mobile apps on Android and iOS.
- We have participated in the Bugatahon and our app has been tested by hundreds of professional testers across the globe.
- We have proven our route to market and have many agreements in place with estate planners, lawyers and charities.
- Prestigious media outlets such as SpringWise, YourStory, BBC Radio, Forbes, Inc etc have written about Planned Departure. It is also covered by sector specific publications such as LawSkills, Legal Futures, Charities Digital news, Blake Morgan and the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners.

Monetisation strategy

Revenue for Planned Departure would mainly come from two different revenue streams initially:

- Subscription revenue from the B2C customers; and
- Subscription revenue from the B2B customers who will offer Planned Departure account to their clients.

1. Subscription revenue from the B2C customers

This model is already working and we are generating revenue from this model. There are three separate plans for user to chose from:

- Monthly
- Yearly
- One time payment

We currently have users in all the plans.

2. Subscription revenue from the B2B customers

For our B2B customers, we have built an innovative solution on top of Planned Departure. It gives them ability to drive engagement with their customers on various channels and help them assess their needs in a much better way.

Our subscription revenue from this stream would come from various sectors such as

- Law firms with private client division - our initial focus
- Charities with interest in legacy fundraising

Digital legacy is becoming an important factor for players in these sectors and in past few months we have built specific value propositions for them on top of our digital legacy solution.

We are currently trialling our solutions for partners in some of these sectors.

Use of proceeds

Planned Departure is gearing for a bigger round now. We have made excellent progress in tools integration, product development and have proven our route to markets. We have tools and processes in place now which we believe will allow us to significantly scale our operations.

We are raising this round to utilise the remaining SEIS funds. Money raised in this round will be spent on:

- Cyber security certification
- Business continuity planning
- Legal compliance
- Addressing feedback from clients and consumers
- Continuous content generation and advertising
- Events participation

With the money raised in this round, we will prepare ourselves for a bigger round.