How a Founder's Loss Sparked a Startup in Estate Planning Tech

Jermaine Ee spent years flying between New York and Los Angeles to see his family. When the pandemic made travel harder, he decided to move home and start a logistics company with his mother, MC. She was a vice president at a logistics firm but was underpaid, he said. Working together gave her the title and pay she deserved, and it meant more time together.

In February 2025, over lunch with his parents, Ee asked about their Roth IRA contributions. That led to a bigger conversation. His mother feared running out of money before she died. She had no will and no clear picture of her assets. Ee used ChatGPT to build a bot that asked her about accounts, belongings, and people she cared about. From that, she created a will.

Those conversations continued. Ee learned more about his mother's life. In May, the family traveled to Oklahoma City, where his parents first landed after immigrating from Malaysia 40 years ago. They visited the Burger King where she ate her first US sandwich. She only ate half because it was too expensive, Ee said. In June, they went to Salzburg, Austria – his mother's dream trip because of The Sound of Music. At the Von Trapp family home, she said she could never have imagined standing there when she watched the movie as a girl in Malaysia.

Two weeks later, she had a stroke. She and her husband were in Malaysia visiting family. She was in a coma for eight days before dying at 61.

"Losing her so unexpectedly was incredibly difficult. But it was just slightly easier because of the conversations we'd been having," Ee said. "We knew she didn't like pain and wouldn't want to be kept alive by machines."

Ee launched HeirLight on what would have been his mother's 62nd birthday last October. The company helps families have the same conversations – about assets, wishes, and end-of-life planning – using AI to guide the process.