{"id":8524,"date":"2022-02-04T08:03:00","date_gmt":"2022-02-04T13:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/?p=8524"},"modified":"2022-02-01T13:44:20","modified_gmt":"2022-02-01T18:44:20","slug":"moms-on-the-phone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/2022\/02\/04\/moms-on-the-phone\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Mom\u2019s on the Phone Talking About Caskets Again’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In this digital age, customization is at the forefront of the consumer\u2019s mind. Why shouldn\u2019t that extend to plans for the afterlife?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Illustration by Stuart Bradford<\/em> <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

As the Siegel family wakes each morning, they think about death. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s on the mind of Liz (Baker) \u201902 Siegel as she climbs out of bed, readies herself for the day, and gets the children, Claire, Caroline, and Eli, off to school. Soon, she\u2019s dialing funeral homes and buyers, suggesting the elegant Orion, a glistening steel model with a plushy crepe interior. Both the head and foot of the Orion can be adjusted, and there\u2019s a rubber gasket and locking mechanism. \u201cIt\u2019s just this beautiful, dignified thing,\u201d Liz says, \u201cand we\u2019re always looking to honor our customers and their loved ones and treat them with dignity and respect.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Orion is a coffin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Josh Siegel \u201901 is also pondering the afterlife in between calls in his home office, where he works as CPO of RealSelf, a health care marketplace. He later joins Liz in the morning meeting for their joint direct-to-consumer company, Titan Casket. Billed as \u201cthe Warby Parker of caskets,\u201d the company, founded in 2020, offers made-to-order resting places for purchase online. From sports team themes to plain pine boxes, Josh and Liz aim to provide a variety of affordable choices to those planning funerals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The duo aren\u2019t just entrepreneurs filling a hole in the massive end-of-life industry (everyone dies, after all). Liz is a lawyer by trade, and Josh holds an MBA from Columbia with a 10-year term at Amazon on his r\u00e9sum\u00e9. With their combined law and e-commerce acumen, they\u2019re able to make analytical decisions to run a successful company. Plus, their business partner, Scott Ginsberg, has more than two decades of experience in the casket industry. Together, their goal is to disrupt Big Casket, offering options more in-line with today\u2019s tech-savvy buyers. \u201cHistorically, you pick a venue, the funeral home, and then the rest of your planning is based on what that venue has available,\u201d Josh says. \u201cBut this next generation … that\u2019s not their expectations when they come into any event. They\u2019re going to want to personalize this event to how they want to be honored, or how to honor their loved one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Navigating that industry can be opaque for consumers, and making death decisions for loved ones can be pressure-filled. Often, when someone dies, the consumer will purchase a casket directly from the funeral home. But, those will usually come at a steep price, according to the Siegels. Because of this trend, Titan often cites the Federal Trade Commission\u2019s Funeral Rule: \u201cWhen you purchase a casket from a third party, the funeral home has to treat it as though it were a purchase they had made themselves,\u201d Liz says. \u201cThey have to accept delivery, they can\u2019t make it burdensome for the customer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That rule has allowed their business to boom: In addition to the Titan website, which offers a build-your-own-casket customization option, the company also sells through Amazon, Sam\u2019s Club, Walmart, and Costco. Their supply of coffins ships from four warehouses across the country, and they sell thousands of caskets each year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because the family business is run at home, talk of post-death plans isn\u2019t off-limits when the kids are around. In fact, it\u2019s encouraged. \u201cFor them, it\u2019s not that big of a deal, because they just see it as \u2018Mom\u2019s on the phone talking about caskets again,\u2019\u201d Liz says. \u201cThey both get to see their parents working together and building something,\u201d Josh adds. When he and Liz hosted a five-child learning pod in their suburban Washington State home at the beginning of the pandemic, the children overheard the adults taking casket calls. And, \u201cthere might just be an urn just casually resting somewhere,\u201d Josh jokes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Titan Casket has also supplied coffins for TV productions, such as Castle<\/em> Rock <\/em>and The Plot Against America<\/em>. <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Josh \u201901 and Liz (Baker) \u201902 Siegel started a customized coffin company. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1222,"featured_media":8525,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[276,860,846,53,636,859,281],"coauthors":[168],"class_list":["post-8524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-endeavor","tag-business","tag-casket","tag-e-commerce","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-family","tag-funeral","tag-tv"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/palXSH-2du","amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2022\/01\/CasketStartUpFinal1f.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1222"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8524"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8868,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8524\/revisions\/8868"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8524"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}