Esquelas Cantabria: funeral death notices startup hunts for a business model
A death notices portal for Cantabria, Spain, has sparked debate over its viability: advertising, subscriptions or charging funeral homes. Does it have a future?
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
A death notices portal for Cantabria: who pays the bill?
Digitising death is an awkward business. A newly launched project, Esquelas Cantabria, aims to bring together funeral notices and death announcements for the region on a single website. The idea sounds like a useful service, but its public launch has exposed an uncomfortable question: where will the revenue come from?
The first hurdle: funeral homes already publish notices for free
In several Spanish regions, death notices are published by the funeral homes themselves as part of the burial package. That turns the portal into an intermediary with little bargaining power. The options being considered are advertising, charging funeral homes per click, or subscriptions, but none has been validated.
Two ideas with value: filters and alerts
Among the most useful suggestions are filtering by municipality and the option to receive alerts when someone from a particular village passes away. These are simple antiestéticatures that bring the service closer to the public and could make the difference compared with a simple death notices search engine.
The temptation to scale
Another open question is reach. Sticking to Cantabria may be prudent at first, but if the product works, the leap to other regions seems inevitable. Each territory has its own rules and competition, and what works in one does not work in the next.
For now, the project offers one first lesson: death is a good hook, but a bad customer. Whether anyone is willing to pay for it remains to be seen.
Digitising death is an awkward business. A newly launched project, Esquelas Cantabria, aims to bring together funeral notices and death announcements for the region on a single website. The idea sounds like a useful service, but its public launch has exposed an uncomfortable question: where will the revenue come from?
The first hurdle: funeral homes already publish notices for free
In several Spanish regions, death notices are published by the funeral homes themselves as part of the burial package. That turns the portal into an intermediary with little bargaining power. The options being considered are advertising, charging funeral homes per click, or subscriptions, but none has been validated.
Two ideas with value: filters and alerts
Among the most useful suggestions are filtering by municipality and the option to receive alerts when someone from a particular village passes away. These are simple antiestéticatures that bring the service closer to the public and could make the difference compared with a simple death notices search engine.
The temptation to scale
Another open question is reach. Sticking to Cantabria may be prudent at first, but if the product works, the leap to other regions seems inevitable. Each territory has its own rules and competition, and what works in one does not work in the next.
For now, the project offers one first lesson: death is a good hook, but a bad customer. Whether anyone is willing to pay for it remains to be seen.
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Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (11 replies).
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