Elayne

What do they actually do

Elayne is a web app that helps families and executors collect key estate documents, understand what to do after a death, and track progress through settlement. The product is live with a public app and onboarding flow that people can sign into today elayne.com. It’s offered both directly to consumers and as an employee benefit purchased by HR/Total Rewards teams YC page, LinkedIn.

Today’s core features include a shared document vault, AI‑powered intake that extracts details from uploaded documents to create a personalized after‑death checklist, and guided workflows for locating assets, claiming benefits, and handling probate or trust administration. The product also promotes an “AI Concierge” you can ask questions; marketing suggests it can drive tasks within the settlement workflow, though the degree of end‑to‑end automation isn’t fully detailed publicly elayne.com, YC page. Elayne also publishes free tools like an after‑death checklist and an inheritance calculator to help people get started elayne.com/resources.

The go‑to‑market emphasizes employers purchasing Elayne as a discretionary benefit that helps employees and immediate family members manage bereavement logistics while giving HR utilization/impact reporting. Individuals can also sign up directly through the consumer site YC page, elayne.com.

Who are their target customer(s)

• HR / Benefits leaders at mid‑size to large employers: They need a simple, scalable way to support bereaved employees without turning HR into case managers, plus clear utilization and impact data to justify budget and renewals.
• Bereaved family members or named executors with little probate experience: They’re overwhelmed by paperwork and deadlines, often unsure which accounts or policies exist, and need step‑by‑step guidance while emotionally taxed.
• Adults proactively organizing family affairs (pre‑loss planners): They struggle to gather wills, policies, and account details in one place and want to prevent downstream friction for future executors.
• Professional fiduciaries and estate attorneys managing multiple estates: They face repetitive intake, missing documents, and inefficient client onboarding that slow administration and increase costs.
• Financial institutions and insurers as partners: They lose time and payouts to missing or hard‑to‑find policies and need better ways to verify beneficiaries and speed claims for deceased customers.

How would they acquire their first 10, 50, and 100 customers

• First 10: Run hands‑on pilots with HR/Total Rewards leaders from founder/YC networks and LinkedIn outreach, offering a no‑risk trial with white‑glove onboarding; capture executor demand via the free checklist and inheritance calculator to convert urgent consumer use cases YC page, elayne.com/resources.
• First 50: Turn pilot outcomes into short ROI case studies (utilization, hours saved, employee feedback) and close more mid‑market HR buyers via targeted outbound and customer referrals; begin onboarding benefits brokers/EAP vendors as resellers for easier procurement YC page, elayne.com/resources.
• First 100: Productize employer onboarding with an admin dashboard and implementation checklist, add a self‑serve employer tier, and formalize broker/platform reseller programs; in parallel, pilot partnerships with insurers/banks to surface policies and establish referral flows from financial institutions and estate professionals elayne.com, YC page.

What is the rough total addressable market

Top-down context:

In the U.S., there were about 3.09 million resident deaths in 2023—each typically triggers estate administration tasks Elayne targets CDC. Employer buyers number roughly 319,000 firms with 50+ employees NAICS, and there are on the order of ~200k estate/probate legal businesses IBISWorld. Insurers report over $6B in previously unclaimed benefits matched via the NAIC locator, indicating substantial recoverable value NAIC.

Bottom-up calculation:

Event TAM: start with ~3.1M annual U.S. estate events (deaths) as potential post‑loss use cases, plus a large pre‑loss segment since only ~34% of Americans report having an estate plan CDC, Caring.com. Buyer TAM: ~319k employers (50+ employees) for an HR‑led benefits sale, ~200k estate/probate firms for professional licenses, and insurer/bank partnerships where unclaimed/slow claims create incentives NAICS, IBISWorld, NAIC.

Assumptions:

• Scope limited to U.S. counts; international expansion would increase totals.
• Employer focus is firms with 50+ employees (common threshold for benefits vendors).
• Dollar TAM depends on pricing and achievable adoption by channel, which aren’t publicly disclosed.

Who are some of their notable competitors

• Empathy: Bereavement and estate management support app offered as an employer benefit; combines tools and human guidance for tasks from funeral planning to estate administration Empathy.
• Betterleave: Employer bereavement and caregiver support platform that packages policies, guidance, and services for HR to support employees after loss Betterleave.
• Atticus: Consumer‑focused probate and estate settlement software that guides executors and families through administration steps across the U.S. and Canada Atticus.
• EstateExec: Executor software providing state‑specific guidance and estate accounting tools to manage assets, debts, and transactions during settlement EstateExec.
• ClearEstate: Estate settlement services and digital tools aimed at simplifying probate and administration for families; also produces employer‑oriented content on bereavement benefits ClearEstate.