Image
Loading...
From an unexpected email came Closure, a Duke-born startup helping families navigate the digital side of loss.
A Message That Shouldn’t Have Existed
The email arrived months after the funeral, and at first, Max Stern didn’t think much of it. Then he saw the sender’s name, a high school friend who had passed away. The account that used to connect them was now sending strangers’ words instead of his own.
“It was just strange and sad,” Max remembers. “And when his family asked if we could help clean it up, I thought, of course we will. But also, why isn’t there a way to handle this?”
That unsettling moment became the seed of what would become Closure, an end-to-end platform that helps families manage the digital afterlife by closing online and social media accounts after someone dies.
Trading the Expected Path for the Unknown
At Duke, Max had been on a conventional trajectory. He studied mathematics, edited a textbook on financial modeling authored by a Duke professor, and planned to work as a quantitative analyst. “I wanted to be in the basement somewhere, pricing financial options,” he says. “I thought that was success.”
But the email and the family’s struggle to resolve something so basic stayed with him. Every online platform required different documentation, different forms, and different hoops to jump through. “It was absurdly difficult,” he says. “And it felt wrong that families had to deal with that while grieving.”
Encouraged by a roommate, Max applied to Duke Innovation & Entrepreneurship’s Melissa & Doug Entrepreneurs program. “That was adults in the room saying this idea isn’t crazy,” he recalls. “It gave me permission to try.”
With guidance from mentors, he started testing the concept the old-fashioned way, visiting funeral homes near campus, handing out flyers, and collecting payments in person. “It was very literal entrepreneurship,” he says. “I was knocking on doors.”
When an Idea Became a Venture
Image
Six months after undergraduate graduation, Max presented his fledgling idea at the Melissa & Doug pitch event. What he expected to be a small experiment drew serious attention. “I didn’t go in planning to raise money,” he says. “But people wanted to invest, close to seven hundred thousand dollars in total offers. It was the first time I realized this could be a real venture.”
He declined the investment, preferring to grow slowly and stay close to his customers. But that early validation gave him the confidence to withdraw from Duke’s graduate computer science program and pursue Closure full-time.
The next few years brought both growth and exhaustion. He hired developers, lost developers, rebuilt the product, and learned how to persuade companies and government agencies to trust a startup with sensitive data.
Then came the moment that nearly ended it. A misunderstanding with a large U.S. government agency led to a cease-and-desist order that temporarily shut down the business. “Getting that letter was gutting,” he says. “We’d finally started to build momentum, and suddenly it looked like we might lose everything.”
For nearly a year, Max and his small team worked through the legal process while keeping the company alive in the background. They ultimately received a judgment affirming their right to operate. “That letter that almost ended us,” Max says, “became the document that proved our legitimacy.” He leaned heavily on his mentors from Duke Innovation & Entrepreneurship, who reminded him that this kind of test wasn’t the end of the story but part of it.
“Sometimes resilience just means showing up again tomorrow,” he says. “That’s what I did.”
What kept him going was the families. Every time Closure sent a confirmation that a loved one’s online accounts had been handled, Max saw how much relief it offered. “We were giving people back their time to grieve,” he says.
Building Something That Lasts
With each iteration, Closure became more sophisticated. What began as a manual service evolved into a scalable platform that could verify deaths and automatically notify organizations to close or memorialize accounts. Max and his team built partnerships with major online platforms, financial institutions, and government agencies, standardizing a process that had never been standardized before.
By 2022, Closure was generating between eight and nine million dollars in annual revenue. That same year, a private equity firm that invests in and operates hundreds of funeral homes and funeral industry software companies across the U.S. acquired the business for forty-eight million dollars.
“It was proof that empathy and practicality can exist together in business,” Max says. “It felt like a natural ending. I’d built something that could outlive me.”
Returning to the Place It Began
After the sale, Max returned to Duke, this time as a teacher and mentor. He now serves as a lecturing fellow with Duke Innovation & Entrepreneurship, teaching courses in New Venture Development and advising early-stage founders. He also assists with the Melissa & Doug Entrepreneurs program, the same one that once gave him his first audience.
“Helping students work through the same uncertainty I faced feels meaningful,” he says. “They’re solving problems in areas I don’t even know about, but I can help them move faster and avoid some of the pain I went through.”
His advice to aspiring entrepreneurs is pragmatic and direct. “Get in the car,” he says. “Go talk to people. You’ll find out fast whether what you’re building matters.” He also adds, “Asking for help is a skill. You can learn to do it well, and it will change everything.”
Image
Full Circle
Looking back, Max describes his time at Duke as a series of open doors: mentors who encouraged him to experiment, programs that gave structure to his ideas, and a community that turned a personal loss into a purpose-driven company.
“I didn’t start out with some grand vision,” he says. “I just wanted to fix something that didn’t make sense. Duke I&E gave me the tools to keep going when it got hard.”
Today, Closure continues to serve families across the country. Max continues to teach and mentor, helping others turn empathy into innovation. The story that began with one misplaced email has become a cycle of guidance and impact, proof that even the most painful moments can lead to meaningful work.