A few years ago, Natalia Parker and Tatyana Thurston, who knew each other through their kids’ Parent-Teacher Organization, began talking about a problem few people think about until it’s too late: what happens to our digital lives after death.
“On average [Americans] have upwards of 100 personal accounts, and we’re not even counting the business accounts, work accounts—and the number of accounts is [growing with each year],” Parker said.
These accounts hold everything from financial records and creative work, to social media identities and subscriptions. Yet in most cases, there’s no clear plan for what happens when someone passes away. Loved ones are often left guessing at passwords, facing roadblocks from tech companies, or losing valuable assets entirely.
Recognizing this gap, the two women decided to build a solution. They founded Dexit, a digital succession planning platform, with the goal of making sure families, businesses, and communities can access and manage digital assets when the original owner is gone.
The name reflects the idea of a “digital exit” plan. And the mission, Parker said, is straightforward: to create a secure, user-friendly system that prevents loss, confusion, and disputes over digital property.
The DEXITPLAN™
At its core, Dexit is a directive-based platform. Users catalog their digital accounts and record instructions for what should happen to each, creating their personal DEXITPLAN™. Unlike a simple list of passwords, these directives integrate with formal estate planning, giving legal weight to users’ decisions.
A central feature of Dexit is its living database of policies from tech companies that users may have accounts with. Each platform—from Google’s “Inactive Account Manager” to Facebook’s legacy contacts and Apple’s digital legacy program—has unique, frequently changing rules. By tracking updates in these areas, Dexit ensures that users’ instructions are enforceable and aligned with platform requirements. Parker and Thurston have become experts in this space, compiling an extensive reference covering the policies and procedures of hundreds of companies.
To get started, users complete a short onboarding quiz, which takes 15 to 20 minutes. The questionnaire gathers account information, user preferences for each account, and any special considerations. These directives guide an assigned digital executor on next steps, acting similarly to a traditional estate plan.
“The core of our business is that you are assigning a directive to all these accounts you own online, and those could be closing the account, transferring the balance and closing it, transferring and deleting it, or memorializing the account,” Parker said.
Pricing is straightforward. Users pay a one-time fee for their plan to cover the assessment, directive creation, and access to Dexit’s continuously updated database. For those seeking ongoing support, Dexit offers a subscription service, acting as a digital executor to manage accounts when the time comes.
Traction and the future
Dexit has already demonstrated its value to customers. In one example a church nearly lost its website domain after the volunteer who originally registered it passed away; Dexit helped navigate the legal and technical hurdles to transfer ownership properly. In another case, the platform organized the scattered digital income streams of an independent rapper, ensuring that royalties and revenue were accessible and properly directed to heirs.
QUICK BITS
Startup: Dexit
Co-Founders: Natalia Parker, Tatyana Thurston
Founded: 2024
Team size: 3
Location: Charlotte
Website: dexitplan.com
Funding: Bootstrapped, pre-seed
For now, the startup is focused on expanding in North Carolina, building relationships with estate planning attorneys and financial advisors. Parker and Thurston aim to integrate the service into broader estate plans, especially as more people with large digital footprints age. Over the long term, Dexit hopes to scale nationally and become the default solution for digital succession planning.
Their ambition is to ensure that anyone, whether an individual, a family, a small business, or an organization, has an accessible plan in place for digital assets.
“We want to be the one source of truth for people’s digital lives,” Parker said.
