Section 01Positioning
Positioning Statement
For the adult child, surviving spouse, or appointed executor who has just been handed responsibility for a deceased person's entire life — and has no idea where to begin — Settle is a guided estate administration platform that walks them through every required step, generates the right documents, and coordinates outreach to banks, insurers, and government agencies on their behalf.
Unlike Empathy, which is locked behind life insurance or employer contracts, and unlike Atticus, which only provides guidance, Settle is available to anyone, immediately, and actually does the work alongside them.
Settle is what every executor wishes existed on the day they realized they had 150 things to do and couldn't remember what day it was.
Pitches by Audience
7-word pitch
We handle the paperwork. You handle the grief.
One sentence (for a search result)
Settle guides executors through every step of estate administration — from the first phone call to the final distribution — in plain language, at a fraction of attorney cost.
Elevator pitch (30 seconds)
When someone dies, their family is suddenly responsible for notifying 30 institutions, filing with probate court, paying debts, and distributing assets — all while grieving. Most people have never done this before. It takes 500 hours and $12,000 on average. Settle breaks it into daily tasks, generates required documents, and handles coordination so families can focus on what matters.
Pitch to a funeral home director
Settle is a bereavement resource you can hand to every family at arrangement time. It gives them a guided checklist, document generation, and step-by-step support through the entire settlement process. No insurance required. No monthly subscription to explain. Just a tool that makes your families' lives easier and reflects well on your firm.
Pitch to a hospice bereavement coordinator
Your families spend the first weeks after a death drowning in administrative demands their minds aren't equipped to handle. Settle is a free or low-cost practical tool you can recommend as part of your bereavement support program. It complements your emotional care with the logistical guidance they desperately need.
Pitch to an estate attorney
Settle handles the administrative work your clients shouldn't be paying attorney rates for — notifying Social Security, closing utility accounts, canceling subscriptions. It makes your clients better prepared, reduces your time explaining basics, and lets you refer families who can't afford full representation.
Taglines
Listed with primary recommendation first.
-
One step at a time, through the hardest paperwork of your life.
Primary. Empathetic, accurate, search-friendly. Does not feel like marketing.
-
We handle the paperwork. You handle the grief.
Bold and clear. Strong for landing pages. May feel too transactional in bereavement contexts.
-
150 steps. We know them all.
Authority signal. Pairs well with the "first 48 hours" content.
-
Estate administration, without the $400-an-hour attorney.
Strong for cost-conscious users. Less appropriate for high-grief moments.
-
When someone dies, the world expects you to know what to do next. We'll show you.
Long-form, empathetic. Ideal for organic content and landing page hero copy.
-
The guide for the executor who's doing this for the first — and only — time.
Precise. Speaks directly to the first-timer persona.
Section 02Competitive Positioning
The estate settlement space has attracted over $400M in venture capital but has not produced a product that is simultaneously accessible to any family, priced for real people, and hands-on rather than guidance-only. Each competitor has a structural weakness that defines Settle's opening.
| Company |
Access Model |
Does Work? |
Price |
Core Weakness |
| Empathy |
Employer or life insurance carrier only |
Guidance + care team |
Free to user (B2B) |
Unreachable to the majority — most families have no qualifying policy or employer contract |
| Atticus |
Direct (subscription) |
Guidance only |
~$50–150 est. |
Provides steps and forms, but families still execute every phone call, every document, every institution contact themselves |
| Alix |
Direct |
AI-assisted |
Not public |
Series A stage, limited product information, fintech-oriented — not grief-aware in its positioning |
| Elayne |
Direct (flat fee) |
Hands-on automation |
Not public |
$500K funded, tiny team — limited reach and trust signals; no content moat |
| ClearEstate |
Direct (% of estate) |
Full service |
1.75% + $20K min |
$20,000 minimum fee prices out the majority of US estates; primarily Canadian |
| DIY + Attorney |
Direct |
Variable |
$5K–$60K+ |
Expensive, slow, fragmented — attorney handles legal but family still handles all administrative work |
| Settle |
Direct — no gatekeeper |
Guided + hands-on |
Accessible pricing |
— |
The Opening
The competitive gap is structural, not incremental. Empathy's $162M in funding built a product that most families cannot access. Atticus's $107M built a product that doesn't do the work. ClearEstate requires a $20,000 minimum. This means the vast majority of the 1.86 million estates settled annually in the US have no adequate tool.
Settle's strategic position is the direct-access, hands-on alternative: available to anyone, on day one, at a price that reflects the value of 500 hours and $12,000 saved — not a percentage of the estate.
The secondary moat is content. No competitor has invested seriously in organic search. Settle can own the top of the funnel before any of them notice.
Section 03Target Users
Three personas cover the overwhelming majority of Settle's addressable users. All three are navigating the same product; they arrive with different starting conditions and different fears.
Diego, 41
The First-Timer
Marketing manager. His mother died unexpectedly last week. He was named executor in a will he has never read. He has a job, two kids, and no idea what a Letters Testamentary is.
He found Settle by searching "what do I do when my mom dies" at 11pm.
Core fear
Making a mistake that costs his siblings money, or triggers legal liability. He doesn't know what he doesn't know.
Sandra, 58
The Veteran
Retired teacher. She helped settle her husband's estate six years ago and is now handling her father's. She knows the process is brutal but remembers it differently — she wants a system this time.
She found Settle through a hospice bereavement program referral.
Core fear
Burning another year of her life on hold with institutions. She wants the burden reduced, not explained.
Carol, 71
The Elder Executor
Retired bookkeeper. Her sister named her executor. She is organized, careful, and entirely uncomfortable with technology — but she is not incompetent. She needs a tool that respects her.
Her estate attorney mentioned Settle as a resource for the administrative work outside his scope.
Core fear
Doing something wrong and not knowing it. Also: being talked down to by software that assumes she is helpless.
Design implication shared by all three: "Grief brain" is neurologically real — grief reduces prefrontal cortex function, impairs working memory and decision-making. Every screen must assume the user is functioning at reduced cognitive capacity. Short sentences. Single actions. No walls of text. No decisions without explanation.
Section 04Marketing Ethics Constraint
The estate administration market sits at the intersection of grief and financial vulnerability. The ethical constraint governing Settle's GTM strategy is not just a legal precaution — it is a product philosophy.
The Rule
- No push-based marketing to bereaved people. No Facebook, Instagram, or Google Display ads targeting "recently bereaved," "death in family," or life-event triggers.
- No retargeting people who searched grief-related terms. Someone who searches "grief support groups" is not an advertising target.
- No cold outreach to funeral home attendee lists, obituary data, or hospital discharge records.
- All acquisition is pull-based: people searching for practical help find Settle through organic search, trusted institutional referrals, or word-of-mouth from people they trust.
- All content leads with genuine help, not with product conversion. If an article about closing bank accounts after death doesn't mention Settle once, that is acceptable and intentional.
This constraint is a competitive advantage, not a limitation. It forces Settle to build trust through demonstrated competence — the same kind of trust that earns referrals from funeral directors, hospice coordinators, and estate attorneys. Companies that violate this norm will generate backlash that damages their brand permanently. Settle's restraint is a long-term moat.
Section 05Channel Strategy
"What to do when someone dies" and its variants generate enormous search volume from people in acute need — people who are already in the problem, already ready to act. No other channel reaches this person at this moment. This is Settle's highest-leverage channel and should receive the majority of early investment.
The strategy is informational content that ranks for high-intent queries, with in-article CTAs inviting users to start the Settle checklist. Articles are not sales pages — they are the most helpful resource on the internet for that question.
10 Primary Keyword Targets
| # |
Keyword |
Est. Monthly Volume |
Intent |
Content Type |
| 1 |
what to do when someone dies |
|
Acute navigational |
Comprehensive guide, first 48-hour focus |
| 2 |
how to settle an estate |
|
Research / planning |
Step-by-step guide with state variations |
| 3 |
what does an executor of an estate do |
|
Role clarity |
Plain-language explainer |
| 4 |
how long does probate take |
|
Timeline anxiety |
State-by-state breakdown |
| 5 |
how to close a bank account after death |
|
Task-specific |
Institution-by-institution guide |
| 6 |
checklist after death of parent |
|
Acute, action-ready |
Downloadable / interactive checklist |
| 7 |
what happens to debt when someone dies |
|
Anxiety / liability fear |
Plain-language guide, state variations |
| 8 |
how to notify social security of a death |
|
Task-specific |
Step-by-step with phone numbers and forms |
| 9 |
small estate affidavit [state] |
|
Probate avoidance |
State-specific landing pages (10 states at launch) |
| 10 |
how to find life insurance policies after death |
|
Asset discovery |
NAIC locator guide + unclaimed property walkthrough |
Volume estimates are derived from Ahrefs/Semrush category benchmarks and related keyword research. Actual volumes require paid tooling for precise figures. All estimates are conservative.
There are approximately 19,000 funeral homes in the US. Independent and regional funeral homes are reachable through direct outreach, NFDA (National Funeral Directors Association) membership, and state association channels. Families arrive at a funeral home within 24–72 hours of a death — this is the highest-leverage moment in the entire customer journey.
- Provide funeral directors with a printed Settle reference card and a branded URL they can hand to every family at arrangement
- Offer funeral homes a co-branded landing page at no cost — their branding, Settle's platform
- No revenue share required at launch: the ask is a referral card in the arrangement folder
- Target 50 funeral homes in the initial 10 states by day 90
US hospices are federally required to provide bereavement follow-up for 13 months after a patient's death. Bereavement coordinators are actively looking for practical resources to supplement emotional support. The Medicare Conditions of Participation make this a structured, repeatable referral channel.
- Outreach to bereavement coordinators at the top 100 hospice providers by volume (identified via CMS hospice provider data)
- Offer Settle as a free or low-cost resource they can recommend — no formal partnership required
- Provide a one-page clinical summary of how Settle reduces administrative burden for bereaved families (supporting their program goals)
- NHPCO (National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization) membership and conference presence in year 1
Estate attorneys regularly receive calls from people who cannot afford full representation, or whose administrative workload falls outside the attorney's billable scope. Settle becomes the resource attorneys recommend for the non-legal work.
- Build a referral page for attorneys to send clients: "Settle handles the administrative side. Call us for the legal strategy."
- Target solo and small firm estate attorneys via state bar association referral directories
- LinkedIn outreach to estate planning and probate attorneys with a clear value proposition: Settle makes their clients better prepared and reduces intake time
- No formal referral fee at launch — the value exchange is reciprocal: attorneys refer clients, Settle refers users who need an attorney
These communities contain real people in real situations asking for exactly the kind of help Settle provides. The strategy is not to post promotional content — it is to answer questions helpfully, completely, and genuinely, and to mention Settle only when it is directly relevant and disclosed as the founder's project.
- Monitor r/personalfinance, r/legaladvice, r/widowers, r/grief, r/EstatePlanning for questions about estate administration
- Respond with thorough, actionable answers — the goal is to be the most helpful response in the thread
- Include Settle in the response only when it is genuinely useful and with full disclosure ("I built a tool for this...")
- Treat every Reddit interaction as a content brief — if the question comes up twice, write an article
Life insurance carriers have the same structural incentive as Empathy's investors — they want bereaved families to locate and claim policies quickly, reducing escheatment risk and demonstrating policyholder value. This is a year 2+ channel requiring BD infrastructure, but it represents the path to Empathy-scale distribution without Empathy's B2B gating model.
- Initial outreach to regional carriers (not the MetLife tier — they already have Empathy)
- Positioning: Settle as a white-label or co-branded bereavement resource, embedded in claims correspondence
- Pilot with one carrier in year 1 if BD capacity permits
Section 06First 100 Users
The first 100 users are not a marketing exercise. They are a learning exercise. The goal is to find real people in the middle of real estate settlements, help them genuinely, observe what breaks, and collect the kind of specific feedback that product roadmaps require. Every action below is designed to achieve that — not to generate conversion metrics.
Target the top recurring questions on r/personalfinance, r/legaladvice, and r/EstatePlanning. Write a complete, accurate answer to each — longer and more specific than any other response in the thread. At the end, disclose: "I built Settle for exactly this situation — it's [free trial/low cost] and it will walk you through every step. Happy to answer follow-ups here too." Track which threads drive sign-ups. The answers that convert become the seed for the content calendar.
Join bereavement communities and participate without agenda for several weeks first. Understand the emotional register of these communities before mentioning Settle. When practical administrative questions arise — "I don't know how to deal with my husband's bank accounts" — respond with help first, and offer Settle as a follow-up resource only if it is genuinely the right fit for what they described. Never solicit grief posts.
Identify bereavement coordinators at the 20 largest hospice providers by volume in the launch states using CMS Hospice Compare data. Send a personalized email (not a mass blast) describing Settle, offering free accounts for their families, and asking for a 20-minute call to understand their current resource gaps. The ask is not a formal partnership — it is a conversation. If 5 of 20 say yes and begin referring, that is 50–100 families in the first 90 days.
Identify 10 solo estate attorneys in the launch states through Avvo, state bar directories, and Google "estate attorney [city]" searches. Call or email each one with a direct pitch: "I built a tool that handles the administrative work — notifying agencies, closing accounts, tracking tasks — that your clients are doing themselves. Would you be willing to refer clients who need practical help but not legal advice?" Offer a dedicated referral link and a follow-up call to answer questions.
The three highest-volume, highest-intent articles — "The first 48 hours after a death," "How to settle an estate: a complete guide," and the state-specific small estate affidavit guide — should be published at least 30 days before launch to allow Google indexing. Even modest early rankings will produce inbound traffic on launch day. These articles are the most important marketing asset Settle has.
Ask the founding team, advisors, and first-degree network for introductions to people who settled an estate in the last 2–3 years. These people remember the experience vividly, have direct opinions on what was missing, and will provide the most honest product feedback available. Offer them free lifetime access in exchange for a 60-minute feedback session. Target 20 sessions minimum before the public launch.
Section 07Content Strategy
Content is Settle's primary moat. The competitors have not built it. The search volume is enormous and underserved. A single well-ranked article on "what to do when someone dies" can drive thousands of qualified users per month at zero ongoing cost.
The content strategy is simple: write the most accurate, most complete, most compassionately worded article that exists for each target query. Do not write for search engines. Write for Diego at 11pm after his mother died. If Diego finds it helpful, Google will too.
Content Principles
- Plain language. No legal jargon without a plain-English definition immediately following.
- Short paragraphs. Users in grief cannot sustain attention on long blocks of text.
- State-specific where relevant. Generic national content is less useful and ranks lower.
- No sales pressure in the article body. The CTA is a single, non-intrusive invitation at the end.
- Every article links to Settle's checklist tool — not as a conversion grab, but as a logical next step for someone who just read about what they need to do.
10 Launch Articles
The first 48 hours after a death: what you actually need to do 40K/mo
Highest-volume intent moment. Covers immediate notifications (SSA, employer, funeral home), securing property, obtaining death certificates, and what not to do (do not distribute assets, do not cancel insurance yet). Written for someone who found it at midnight.
How to settle an estate: a plain-language guide from start to finish 22K/mo
Comprehensive guide covering all 6 phases: immediate actions, estate inventory, probate filing, creditor notification, tax obligations, and final distribution. This becomes the pillar piece that all other articles link to.
Understanding probate: what it is, what it costs, and how to avoid it 16K/mo
Demystifies probate, explains supervised vs. unsupervised, covers small estate affidavit thresholds by state, explains what bypasses probate (joint tenancy, beneficiary designations, trusts). Addresses the #1 anxiety: "Do I have to go to court?"
How to close a bank account after someone dies 12K/mo
Step-by-step for Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and credit unions. What documents each institution requires. What to do when the account is joint vs. solely in the deceased's name. How to handle direct deposits and automatic payments. One of the most-searched specific tasks.
Executor checklist: 150 tasks, organized by week 9K/mo
The most comprehensive executor checklist on the internet, organized by phase and week rather than category. Downloadable PDF version. This is the article most likely to be bookmarked, shared, and linked to by estate attorneys and hospice coordinators.
What happens to debt when someone dies? 9K/mo
Addresses one of the most anxiety-producing questions. Explains which debts are estate debts vs. personal, how creditors are legally required to be handled, what debt collectors can and cannot do, and how CFPB protections apply. Helps users stop being intimidated by collection calls.
How to notify Social Security when someone dies 7.5K/mo
Specific, actionable. Phone numbers, hours, what to say, what documents to have. Addresses survivor benefits (who qualifies, how to apply, deadlines). One of the tasks people delay because they don't know how to start — this removes every barrier.
How to find life insurance policies you didn't know existed 4K/mo
Covers NAIC Life Insurance Policy Locator, state unclaimed property databases, employer benefits review, mail-based detection, and MIB Group records. Potentially one of the highest-value articles Settle publishes — helping users find policies that pay for the product many times over.
Small estate affidavit: skip probate if the estate qualifies [state-specific x10] 5K/mo x10
Ten state-specific pages (California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, Washington) covering threshold amounts, eligible assets, required forms, and filing instructions. State-specific pages rank faster and higher than generic national content.
How to cancel subscriptions and digital accounts after a death 3K/mo
Netflix, Spotify, Amazon Prime, Apple ID, Google Account, Facebook, LinkedIn — specific steps for each. Includes digital estate rules under RUFADAA. Low search volume but extremely high helpfulness-per-reader and likely to earn links from personal finance and estate planning blogs.
Section 0890-Day Launch Sequence
Publish first 3 articles (48-hour guide, settle an estate, probate explainer) and submit sitemap to Google Search Console
Build and publish 10 state-specific small estate affidavit landing pages
Set up Google Search Console, Ahrefs (or Semrush), and rank tracking for all 10 keyword targets
Identify 20 hospice bereavement coordinators in launch states; draft personalized outreach emails
Identify 10 solo estate attorneys in launch states; prepare referral pitch and landing page
Recruit 20 beta users from personal network (people who settled estates in last 3 years)
Begin Reddit community participation — answer 3 questions per week, no promotion yet
Set up r/personalfinance, r/legaladvice, r/EstatePlanning keyword alerts
Conduct 10 beta user sessions — observe task completion, document confusions, collect pain point vocabulary
Draft referral card and co-branded template for funeral home outreach
Public launch — product accessible with onboarding for all 10 states
Send hospice bereavement coordinator outreach — 20 personalized emails; follow up at day 7
Send estate attorney outreach — 10 personalized emails; schedule calls with respondents
Publish articles 4–7 (bank account closure, executor checklist, debt, SSA notification)
Begin funeral home outreach — target 15 independent funeral homes in launch states
Begin posting Settle links on Reddit where genuinely relevant, with founder disclosure
Set up email capture on all articles — offer downloadable executor checklist PDF in exchange for email
Send first email to beta users — request reviews, referrals, and specific feedback
Monitor Google Search Console for first keyword impressions and clicks; adjust content based on query data
Compile list of estate attorney referral directory submissions (Avvo, Martindale, FindLaw)
Publish remaining 3 articles (life insurance locator, subscriptions guide, closing article series)
Follow up with hospice coordinators who expressed interest — onboard their first referred families
Activate first funeral home co-branded landing pages (target 5 live by day 90)
Review all article rankings — update and expand any article ranking on page 2 for its target keyword
Identify the 5 Reddit threads that drove the most sign-ups — convert each into a published article
Reach out to estate planning bloggers and personal finance newsletters for inclusion in resource lists
Submit to NFDA (National Funeral Directors Association) member resource directory
Compile first 90-day metrics report: organic traffic, sign-up conversion rate, partnership pipeline, article performance
Interview 10 active users — what was the moment they felt Settle was worth it? What almost made them leave?
Set Q2 priorities based on actual data — double down on the two channels that drove the most qualified users
Section 09Budget ($0–200/month)
The marketing budget constraint is a forcing function toward the right strategy. Paid advertising targeting bereaved people is both ethically off-limits and economically unsound — the customer acquisition cost would be prohibitive. The entire budget is allocated to tools that amplify organic content and relationship-based acquisition.
| Item |
Purpose |
Monthly Cost |
| Google Search Console |
Keyword performance, indexing, click data — the single most important SEO tool |
$0 |
| Ahrefs Starter / Semrush Lite |
Keyword research, rank tracking, competitor gap analysis, backlink monitoring |
$29–49 |
| Canva Pro |
Funeral home referral cards, hospice one-pagers, downloadable checklist PDFs |
$15 |
| Email (ConvertKit or Beehiiv free tier) |
Checklist PDF delivery, beta user communications, early user nurture |
$0–29 |
| Domain + Hosting |
settle.com or getsettleapp.com — fast hosting matters for Core Web Vitals and SEO |
$15–30 |
| Printing (referral cards) |
Physical materials for funeral home and hospice coordinator outreach — 500 cards |
$25 (one-time) |
| Reddit ads |
Zero. Community participation only — paid Reddit ads in grief-adjacent communities violate the ethics constraint |
$0 |
| Google Ads |
Zero at launch. Search intent ads for "estate administration software" are viable eventually, but not during the build-trust phase |
$0 |
| Total |
All organic, all pull-based, zero push marketing |
$59–123/mo |
The budget ceiling of $200/month is not a limitation — it is an asset. Settle's first-year CAC will be measured in content hours, not dollars. A single article ranking #1 for "checklist after death of parent" at 9,000 searches/month with a 3% CTR and 10% trial conversion delivers ~27 new users per month, indefinitely, at zero marginal cost.
Section 10Metrics & Success Criteria
At 90 days, success is defined not by revenue (product may still be in early pricing validation) but by three indicators: people are finding Settle organically, people are completing onboarding, and at least one partnership channel is producing referrals.
90-Day Targets
100
Registered users
Combined from organic, Reddit, and partner referrals
500
Monthly organic sessions
From published articles and state-specific pages
5
Active partner referrers
Hospice coordinators, funeral homes, or attorneys actively referring
10
Keywords ranking top 50
On Google for target queries — appearing is the first step to ranking
>40%
Onboarding completion
Users who begin onboarding and complete at least 3 steps
20
Qualitative interviews
With real users in active estate settlements
The Metric That Matters Most
None of the numbers above are the most important metric in year one. The most important metric is: did Settle actually help someone get through this?
The first time a user emails to say "I don't know how I would have done this without Settle" — that is the GTM validation that matters. It means the product is solving the real problem. Everything else follows from that.
Leading Indicators
- Organic search impressions (Google Search Console)
- Article time-on-page (target: 4+ min for long guides)
- Checklist PDF downloads
- Partner outreach response rate
- Reddit upvotes on helpful answers
Lagging Indicators
- User sign-ups by source
- Task completion rate within the product
- Referral rate (users who invite a co-executor or family member)
- Partner referral volume
- NPS / satisfaction rating at 30-day mark
A note on patience: SEO compound interest takes 3–6 months to materialize. Articles published today will not rank until month 3–4 at the earliest for competitive terms, and month 6+ for the highest-volume queries. The 90-day metrics above are seeding metrics, not harvest metrics. The right time to measure organic search ROI is month 9–12, when the content published in months 1–3 has had time to earn authority.