This week’s Founder Friday, we meet Baci Hillyer, who lost her family at 15 and created an AI guiding thousands through end-of-life planning.
Building a business in a taboo space is inherently challenging. Death is avoided emotionally and practically. Ten out of ten of us are going to die, yet we live in a culture that avoids death, believing that avoidance protects us, when in reality, it amplifies harm.
Baci Hillyer founder of Deadicate
When Baci Hillyer was 15 years old, her world shifted in ways that would shape the next three decades of her life. Her father died. Five months later, her brother died too. In the space of six months, she lost two people she loved and learned something most people don’t discover until much later in life: the cost of silence around death.
“I learned very young what happens when death arrives with no conversation, no preparation, and no community around it,” Hillyer recalls. “That experience shaped not just my grief, but my ability to stay present in situations most people avoid.”
For years after those losses, she listened to families, carers and communities tell her the same story. The distress didn’t come from death itself. It came from something else entirely.
“The distress didn’t come from death itself, it came from silence, avoidance and not knowing what to do next,” she explains. The data backs her observations. Seventy percent of Australians want to die at home, yet fewer than 15% actually do. While 82% of Australians believe it is important to plan for death, fewer than half have taken action.
This gap between what people wanted and what actually happened became the spark for Deadicate. Hillyer saw an opportunity not just to help individual families, but to shift Australian culture itself.
“Deadicate was created to change that. The business exists to make end-of-life preparation more accessible, less overwhelming, and something people can approach early, the way they would with any other major life planning,” she says.
The philosophy underpinning everything Deadicate does is deceptively simple. “Our core belief is simple: conversation leads to preparation, and preparation leads to peace of mind. Everything we build is designed to help people talk, plan and feel supported long before they’re in crisis.”
Building in the space people avoid
Deadicate operates in a space most people and most businesses deliberately avoid. Death is taboo in Australia. We live in what Hillyer calls a “death-phobic society,” one where avoidance is mistakenly believed to offer protection when it actually amplifies harm. “When we avoid death, we limit life. When we prepare, we bring peace forward,” she says.
To serve people effectively, Deadicate needed to exist as an ecosystem where people could enter at the point that felt right for them. The platform offers multiple pathways into this difficult territory. There is the Live Well Leave Well podcast, where Hillyer hosts open, practical conversations about death, grief and legacy. There is Timeless Transitions, a structured journey for people facing change, grief or fear, using tools that work even when talking feels too hard.
And there is LWELL, an AI assistant built using her own voice, designed to help people explore practical, emotional and spiritual aspects of end-of-life planning at their own pace.
The technology piece represents one of Hillyer’s proudest innovations. She developed LWELL to address a specific reality: many people are not comfortable discussing death with another person, even a professional. An AI assistant, built on principles of responsible technology and responsible death, could offer something different.
“LWELL is built on responsible AI meets responsible death, ensuring people have choice, capacity, and control while being well resourced to make informed decisions, even if they don’t feel comfortable speaking about dying with another person,” she explains.
But the technology never replaces human connection. It supports it. The AI offers personalised prompts, checklists and explanations, helping users navigate the four quadrants of dying well: practical, emotional, spiritual and physical.
Alongside Deadicate’s products, Hillyer facilitates end-of-life conversations, educates community groups, volunteers in palliative care and is writing a self-help book to make this work even more accessible. Her primary audience is Gen X, the sandwich generation juggling ageing parents, children, careers and their own mortality.
“They’re practical, time-poor and increasingly aware that avoiding hard conversations only creates more stress later,” she observes. “Deadicate gives them a way to do this differently: with clarity, confidence and relief rather than fear.”
When technology meets humanity
Culturally, Australia remains deeply death-avoidant. Nearly half of eligible Australians have no will. Only 19% have discussed future healthcare preferences with someone else. More than 70% have never discussed what they want when dying.
Building a business around death requires rejecting how the wider culture approaches mortality. One of Hillyer’s most deliberate choices was to refuse fear-based marketing.
“Death does not need urgency tactics. Preparation should feel steady, humane, and empowering,” she states.
This approach stands apart in a marketplace often driven by urgency and anxiety. Deadicate’s difference lies in integrating conversation, community, education, storytelling, guided emotional support and ethical technology into a holistic ecosystem. The emotional weight of this work is significant. Hillyer’s ability to hold complex, difficult conversations comes from lived experience, palliative care volunteering, decades of listening and end-of-life doula training. That emotional grounding has been essential to building something authentic in this space.
The decision to build LWELL brought additional responsibility. Australians were surveyed as being among the least trusting of AI globally, with 69% reportedly nervous about the technology. Developing LWELL required careful, deliberate decision-making and a deliberate rejection of fast-paced tech culture.
“Innovation in AI with LWELL also brings responsibility. Australians were surveyed to be the least trusting of AI in the world, so developing LWELL required careful, deliberate decision-making and the rejection of fast-paced tech culture in favour of trust, dignity, and humanity,” Hillyer emphasises.
This commitment to values over speed defines everything Deadicate does. The business exists in a space most founders would avoid. Yet the need is enormous and growing. By 2042, Australia’s over-85 population will exceed one million people. Growing numbers of Australians are ageing alone. Systems remain unprepared for the emotional and administrative realities ahead.
Yet culturally, Australia remains deeply death-avoidant. Nearly half of eligible Australians have no will. Only 19% have discussed future healthcare preferences with someone else. More than 70% have never discussed what they want when dying. Families left without this information become overwhelmed, unprepared and often traumatised by the administrative and emotional aftermath.
Purpose as the fuel
Building a business in a taboo space has not been easy. Hillyer has had to challenge cultural norms, educate consumers about a service they did not know existed, and balance emotional labour with entrepreneurial demands. Yet each challenge reinforces something fundamental to her work.
“There is enormous need, and opportunity, in helping people face the finish line with clarity rather than fear,” she reflects.
When obstacles arise, she returns to what sustains her. Her advice to other founders is grounded in the lessons she has learned. “My advice is to remember your purpose. You will face obstacles and hurdles. You’ll need to review, refresh, rework when you’re starting out. Remind yourself of the importance of your work and the purpose behind it. Let that carry you forward,” Hillyer says.
For Baci Hillyer, purpose is not something separate from business. Purpose is the business. And it is powering a movement that is gradually, steadily changing how Australians think about and prepare for their own mortality, one conversation, one plan, one moment of clarity at a time.
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