When Sara Tashakorinia’s husband died in a car accident eight years ago, she faced the daunting task of managing approximately 570 hours of paperwork to settle his affairs. For millions of people each year, this is a harsh reality: a profound loss followed by a relentless wave of administrative tasks. Tashakorinia remarked, > "The day your loved one passes away, you also get this honorary badge of a project manager for a project you had no idea about, trying to navigate something and learn something when you literally have zero information."
The Birth of LumenUs
After years of volunteering to assist others in navigating the complexities she faced, Tashakorinia realized that AI could alleviate some of the burdens—not by addressing the emotional aspects of grief, but by simplifying the more mundane tasks such as locating tax forms, filing insurance claims, and closing bank accounts. This realization led to the creation of LumenUs, a grief care platform founded last year to help families manage the administrative workload during their time of loss.
Tashakorinia expressed her frustrations, stating, > "I think going through it, your threshold of pain is so high, and you’re so lost that you don’t really realize, why do people treat you this way? Why was I left with a stack of paperwork, and why was the funeral home charging me a 300% markup on a casket?"
