Guided Living Will Before the Crisis: startup idea with real demand
A father landed in the ICU with respiratory failure and no living will, leaving his son to make medical decisions without knowing what he'd want.
r/CaregiverSupport · Sep 14, 2026 – Oct 14, 2026 · 41 upvotes
Dad went into respiratory distress without a…
Read the thread · 19 comments
Guided Living Will Before the Crisis is a startup idea for adult children and seniors. A father landed in the ICU with respiratory failure and no living will, leaving his son to make medical decisions without knowing what he'd want. A thread in r/CaregiverSupport drew 41 upvotes and 19 comments between Sep 14, 2026 – Oct 14, 2026. People get by with Five Wishes, LegalZoom, and Hospital forms, and that still leaves this job open. Hotness is 2.90, Simmering. Strong pain. Some willingness to pay. The thread drew 41 upvotes and 19 comments. Crowded with decent tools. A few weeks of work. A first version is a moderate amount of work, about 3–4 weeks, priced between $10 and $49 a month and charged as a one-time purchase. The pain, the source, the alternatives, the scope notes, and the questions on this page are free to read and free to build from. The agent starter prompt is the paid part. The first slice is on the page. One credit unlocks the rest, to paste into a coding agent, download as Markdown, or send as a private link.
Verbatim quotes are added only after a manual check. Until then, the thread title is the excerpt. Exact post date and verbatim quotes pending enrichment.
Who has it
Adult children and seniors.
What people use now
- Five Wishes
- LegalZoom
- Hospital forms
A way through
Gently guide families through a legally sound advance directive before a crisis, using plain questions instead of legal jargon, with storage and emergency access.
MVP scope
- Give adult children and seniors a way to do this in one sitting: Plain-language questions that produce a legally valid advance directive, stored for instant emergency access.
- Persist the result and show it again after a reload.
- State the empty case when there is nothing to show yet, with one next step.
- Charge later with a one-time purchase, between $10 and $49 a month. The free path must finish the core job once.
- Ship the web app only. Leave Five Wishes to keep the jobs they already do well.
How it could charge
One-time purchase · $10–49 a month · B2C · US.
Hotness 2.90
3 of 5, Simmering. Strong pain. Some willingness to pay. The thread drew 41 upvotes and 19 comments. Crowded with decent tools. A few weeks of work.
Why this score
| Pain | 4 / 5 |
| Willingness to pay | 3 / 5 |
| Demand | 1 / 5 |
| Competition gap | 2 / 5 |
| Ease of build | 3 / 5 |
| Recency | 5 / 5 |
Weights: pain 25%, willingness to pay 20%, demand 20%, gap 15%, ease 10%, recency 10%. Recency is recomputed every build. The source report’s 1–10 score is not shown.
Questions
Is this idea already taken?
People already use Five Wishes, LegalZoom, Hospital forms. Those options do not do the job in the solution above. The idea is free to build. Nothing here is an exclusive claim.
How hard is a first version?
Moderate. A tight MVP is about 3 weeks (3–4 weeks), assuming the regulated or partner-gated parts are stubbed. The paid prompt turns that into tasks.
Who would pay, and how?
The audience is adult children and seniors. Charge a one-time purchase, and test a price between $10 and $49 a month. Willingness to pay is one input to Hotness, not a promise that someone will buy.
Can I use the evidence?
Yes. Build the product. The thread title is a short excerpt with a link, not a quote we are putting in someone's mouth. Exact post dates and verbatim lines are added only after a manual check. Ideas are suggestions, not medical, legal, or financial advice.
Agent prompt
The first slice is public. The rest is fetched only after you unlock it, and it is not in this page’s HTML.
# Agent starter prompt: Guided Living Will Before the Crisis You are a senior product engineer. Build only the product described in this document. If a detail is missing, choose the smallest option and write it down in the README. Do not invent a second product, a marketplace of marketplaces, or a growth hack. ## Product Name: Guided Living Will Before the Crisis One line: Plain-language questions that produce a legally valid advance directive, stored for instant emergency access. Shape: Web app AI stance: AI-assisted Region for v1: United States Hotness (context only, not a requirement): 2.90 (simmering). Strong pain; some willingness to pay; thread engagement 41▲/19💬 (demand 1/5); crowded with decent tools; a few weeks of work. ## Problem A father landed in the ICU with respiratory failure and no living will, leaving his son to make medical decisions without knowing what he'd want. Who feels it: Adult children and seniors.
Unlock the rest with 1 credit.
The sister site keeps a free plan and a free growth prompt for the same pain. Draft the business plan
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