Selsbergs aim to help families through a difficult time

“Many people, unfortunately, never have the important conversations with their families that are necessary to help everyone face the difficult circumstances around the end of life,” said Lori Selsberg. “I learned this the hard way, in my own family, where I have seen too many loved ones pass away unexpectedly and we had to scramble around looking for all the important things we wanted and needed.”

As a result, Lori and her husband, Dave, looked to find a solution for their own children, so they wouldn’t find themselves in the same difficult situation. They were motivated and committed to ensuring their own children wouldn’t have to find themselves worrying about how or where to find important documents when dealing with the grief of losing a parent. 

As Lori and Dave did the research for a solution for their own family, they discovered alarming information. They learned there is more than $1.65 trillion in unclaimed retirement accounts in this country and more than $1 billion in unclaimed life insurance policies, all because people either didn’t know these financial documents existed or where they were located. As a result, Lori and Dave recognized the problem was larger than their immediate family and formulated the idea for a new business. 

Dave and Lori had the perfect backgrounds to come together not just as spouses, but also as business partners. Dave’s background is in the business world, where he managed and started a number of businesses, and Lori has a background in business transformation and a law degree. Together, their backgrounds aligned perfectly to develop the DocuGuardian solution. 

As their website notes, the solution is designed to empower people to deal with the realities of the end of life. Lori and Dave believe the ideal customer profile for DocuGuardian is someone aged 50 to 75, with children and/or assets of some type. Their website provides assistance for people to help them have difficult conversations they may not have had. In addition, the DocuGuardian solution helps people organize important content like legal documents, financial information, advance directives and even personal items such as family recipes that have been passed down from one generation to another and can never be replaced if lost.

While the Selsbergs recently launched their business, they also have an eye on the future. As they look into their crystal ball, their goal is for their solution to become the industry benchmark for legacy planning. As Lori said, “We want to be the TurboTax equivalent for legacy planning in the U.S.”

While DocuGuardian is designed for individuals, much of the growth will come through professionals offering it as part of their core business. They include trust/estate attorneys, financial advisors, senior services and insurance agents who work in settings where they are prone to ask their clients the difficult questions. Now they have a resource that was not available to them before. The Selsbergs' own personal commitment to preserving the environment, using less paper and moving away from printed records, means DocuGuardian can offer another important benefit – being environmentally friendly.

One of the biggest challenges Lori and Dave had in building their business was making sure they found the right people for their team; people they could trust to develop the secure platform the way they wanted it developed. Because the solution evolved from such a personal place, developing this solution has meant more to them than just developing a business. And they feel so fortunate they have been able to recruit and develop the team they were seeking. 

When asked what each of them would tell their 18-year-old younger self, they had complementary responses. Dave’s advice would be to surround yourself with people who enrich you, and seek out healthy relationships where each person makes the other person better. Lori’s advice would be to make sure you are doing something every day that is meaningful to you, because none of us know what tomorrow will bring.

Another idea that excites Lori and Dave about their business is that it really is more than a technology platform or a resource to deal with end-of-life issues. It offers the potential to strengthen family connections and to build a legacy for their loved ones. With their solution, people have the important and practical benefits of preserving important documents. But more than that, people can also preserve family memories with photographs, videos, recipes and stories that can be told and retold by future generations, with the information readily available to them. As Dave says, “While none of us will get out of here alive, what everyone hopes for is to be remembered by future generations in some way or another.” And helping people create those generational memories is a unique and transformational aspect of what they offer.