Entrepreneur breathes new life into funeral business

Detroit Free Press (MCT) - At 28, St. Clair, Mich., resident and Internet entrepreneur _ known around town as "Joey" _ stands out in the tidy, riverside community where he's founded several dotcoms. They include FuneralOne, which brought in $2.8 million last year selling Disney-esque memorial video software and other services.

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Aside from his stealthy black Mercedes, hip black clothes and spiky blond hair, Joachim's can-do energy is striking against the easygoing backdrop of St. Clair, where flags flap in the wind and white picket fences abound.

Joachim (pronounced YAHK-em) talks fast. He rarely sits still. He buzzes with new ideas.

"You never would have thought I would have ended up in the funeral business," Joachim readily admitted during an interview at his office, where three flat-screen monitors are lined up across his desk.

Joachim's growing enterprise _ which also includes an online counseling Web site, a business that helps owners of distressed properties and a new line of beauty products _ is located in the same historic home where Joachim grew up learning about his father's real estate business.

That Coldwell Banker franchise, run by H. Joseph Joachim III, is still in operation, though it's been suffering along with Michigan's abysmal housing market.

Despite that, the mood inside is lively, not glum.

Dance music thumps in the background. Young adults in jeans sit at desks scattered throughout the second floor. The young Joachim's desk is cluttered with projects.

Over the past five years, Joachim, a college dropout, has helped revolutionize the stuffy funeral business with software that helps funeral directors create high-quality videos that celebrate someone's life in grand, heartfelt fashion.

The first version of the software, launched in 2004, was called "Easy Tribute."

Basically, a funeral director uses the software to upload personal photos of a client, select their profession or hobby, add a few additional details, such as the date of birth and death, or the names of children.

Then, the software produces an emotional memorial video. Animated birds peacefully fly by scenic landscapes. The musical scores are symphonic. And, most importantly, the product feels deeply personal.

"We've got themes for virtually anything," Joachim said.

The videos are then shown during visitation.

Every time a funeral uses the software for a new client, Joachim receives $20, and it's safe to say that business has been good.

"We're not hurt by the downturn in the economy," Joachim said.

By last year, Joachim said he had amassed about 5,000 funeral home clients.

That is about one-fourth of the 21,000 funeral homes nationwide that conduct an average of 187 services per year, according to the National Funeral Directors Association.

"I lived and breathed this thing 15 hours a day, seven days a week," said Joachim, who hasn't taken on any debt to build the company. "I've put every dollar I've made back into the business."

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Now, Joachim's expecting his FuneralOne business to explode, to an estimated $10 million this year, and he's eagerly seeking talented leaders to help him manage the growth.

In July, FuneralOne launched the next generation of its video software, called "Life Tributes," which represents a sizable strategic move in Joachim's plan to expand his enterprise through www.LifeTributes.com.

The new software, which was featured on the latest cover of the trade magazine "Funeral Business Advisor," offers improvements to the personalized memorial videos, which can now be burned to DVDs for guests, and will help create accompanying printed materials, such as prayer cards.

What's more, the latest software also offers funeral homes the ability to Webcast live funeral services for guests who might not be able to attend _ and also build memorial Web sites that, along with the videos, can live on in perpetuity.

All for a fee, of course.

But Joachim's vision for LifeTributes.com is actually much larger than the funeral business.

"The mission," he said, "is to be the largest portal in the world for helping people connect and share memories."

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And remember: This is just one of Joachim's businesses.

Joachim started his first business when he was a child, in about fourth grade. He convinced his parents to buy him a Tandy TL computer back in the late 1980s and hire a professor to teach him how to use it.

A business printing birthday banners quickly followed.

Soon enough, strangers were showing up at the Joachim residence, looking for Joey, who was about 10 years old and making $70 a week.

"I was always into what you could do with technology," Joachim recalled.

Joachim's parents eventually shut the business down, to cool his taste for money.

As he got older, Joachim said he "poked around a lot of different things."

"I've always been business-minded," he said. "That's what excites me."

Not everything, like his pressure-washing business, worked. But, he always kept trying new things, taking risks.

"He's always been wired," explained his father.

At 19, Joachim dropped out of Hillsborough Community College in Brandon, Fla., and returned home to St. Clair.

Joachim, who considers himself more of a marketer than a computer expert, had just sold a database program to a hospital company in southeast Michigan, and one of his college professors recommended that he skip college and go start a business.

"I rarely do this," Joachim recalled the professor saying.

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That was about 1999, and Joachim came home and eventually founded Platinum Digital Media, which set up Web sites for other businesses, for $5,000 to $30,000.

Soon afterward, the Wujek-Calcattera & Sons funeral home, based in Sterling Heights, asked him to build its Web site.

Joachim wasn't that interested _ largely because he didn't know anything about the business. So, Wujek-Calcattera paid him to come and learn.

"For four months, I learned it inside and out," Joachim said.

Most of all, he learned there was a lot of room for improvement in the funeral business. FuneralOne, and all of its innovations, followed in 2003.

"I created the first guestbook system online," Joachim said.

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© 2008, Detroit Free Press.