The Hustle - 🪦 RIP to a $63B industry

Happy Trends Tuesday!

If you have no qualms about death, you’ve probably thought about what should happen to your body after you’re gone.

When I was young, I considered getting my ashes mixed with fireworks powder to make a final spectacle. (🤦‍♀️)

A terrible idea, I know. Not to mention highly destructive to the environment. 

Luckily, those more eco-conscious than my younger self want to leave the earth a better place, so they’re opting for greener ways to bid their farewell. 

In today's email…

• Breathing new life into the death care business
• What we’re surfin’, from the economy of haunted houses to the most popular Halloween candy

Let's dive in! 

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💀 OUR LATEST OBSESSION

Rest. In. Green.

How our bodies are handled after death can be tricky business — that's why there's a ~$63B market dedicated to it. 

But now's a great time for entrepreneurs to disrupt the traditional funeral and cremation services market: 

• Burial spaces all over the world are running out
• In 2024, 68% of Americans are interested in exploring sustainable funeral options.

As younger generations care more about their carbon footprint (even after death), we could see this trend pick up steam.

Average monthly US Google search volume. Source: Ahrefs

Innovation in eco-friendly death has already accelerated in recent years. A few popular options: 

🌱 Human composting: Turning bodies into nutrient-rich soil through a process of natural organic reduction. Notable players include Recompose ($18m in funding) and Return Home (664k+ followers on TikTok), as well as Transcend, which literally turns your body into a tree. 

💧 Aquamation: Using an alkaline water solution to break down the bodies. Compared to cremation, it consumes ~90% less energy and releases no harmful greenhouse gasses. 

🏗️ Vertical cemeteries: A skyscraper for the dead that saves burial spaces. And it can look kind of dope — like this digital one in China. 

Source: Bloomberg

🐠 Green (or blue) burials: Buried in a biodegradable coffin, often in a natural setting. Think forests, meadows, or even under the sea.

🚀 Space burial: Sending your ashes into orbit, which is closer to my silly childhood idea. Companies that offer this service include Beyond Burials ($1.5k) and Celestis ($3.5k to $13k). 

What does this mean for business?

Any of the options mentioned above could spark a new venture. Many of them are still quite niche, thanks to different state regulations. 

If you monitor the legal landscape around human composting, aquamation, or other alternative practices, you could be an early player in your home state.

There’s also a market for eco-friendly caskets and urns, using sustainable materials like bamboo, willow, and biodegradable plastics. 

But more importantly, the eco-friendly trend signals a broader acceptance of the death positivity movement. It means that we’re readier than ever to break the taboo and embrace innovation in end-of-life services. 

Here are three opportunities in our arsenal: 

1. Funeral homes are going boutique — and lux.

No longer stuffy and formal, funeral homes like Sparrow and Exit Here are lighting up the scene with beautiful products and sleek interior spaces.

Ok, I can see myself exiting here. Source: The New York Times

Dying to get in on this? Avoid the headache of navigating industry red tape by buying an existing home or partnering with older chains and:

• Modernizing the brand
• Building out customer service that actually works
• Providing high-end products to create a spa-like feel

There may even be an opportunity to offer bespoke, seriously nontraditional services (Viking funerals, anyone?).

2. Support in the final chapter. 

Even the deathbed vigil is getting a modern shake up. “Exit parties,” aka “living funerals,” allow the terminally ill or aging to celebrate with their loved ones before passing. 

You could help plan and execute end-of-life events. Another opportunity here is the death doula niche. 

Death doulas help guide you and your family through the dying process. There may be a significant opportunity to train death doulas to meet rising demand: The industry is largely unregulated, and current virtual training courses go for ~$895 each. Qualified doulas earn $25-$100+/hour. 

Bonus: Death doulas also get to do fun things like hosting a dinner party.

3. Death cafes. 

These are events where people “gather to eat cake, drink tea, and discuss death” (they had us at cake). 

Ahrefs shows this basic death cafe site gets 52k+ visits/mo. We wouldn’t be surprised if the idea takes off as taboos around death are broken.

Focus on hosting death cafes, or provide themed foods, content, or “host a death cafe package” to existing establishments. The events may also become a showcase opportunity for death-care brands.

Keys to success: content marketing

Humans have long held a fascination for all things morbid. Case in point, there are 179k subscribers to r/CemeteryPorn (it’s not what you think).

A mustachioed dude who shares weird morbid stories has 4.6m followers on TikTok and gets hundreds of millions of views.

Source: YouTube

Famous mortician Caitlin Doughty has 2m+ subscribers on her YouTube, where she breaks down everything in the death business for the morbidly curious. A YouTube video of her visiting a human composting facility gets ~3m views, easy.

Brands in the death-care space could reach more people by leveraging social media, or even release their own lines of morbid-themed merch.

⚰️ OPEN CASKETS

🎃 Scary business: The economy of running a haunted house

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👻 Listen: This Halloween product is running the Elf on The Shelf playbook

🍬 Sweets: Find out the most popular Halloween candy in your state