Based in Madison, Wisconsin, Entrustet's mission is to allow people to quickly, easily and securely prepare last wishes for their digital assets. Entrustet was founded by Jesse Davis and Nathan Lustig in November 2008 to address the need to integrate online assets such as email, banking and investment accounts, photos and videos, and online memberships into legally endorsed estate plans. Davis and Lustig identified the opportunity based on the ever-increasing amounts of people and assets on the Internet and the confusion and challenges resulting after death.

"I was reading Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat and one of the chapters was about the Justin Ellsworth case. Ellsworth was a U.S. Marine who was killed in action in Iraq. Justin's parents wanted access to his Yahoo! account after he passed, and Yahoo! refused. After a few months in court, a judge ordered Yahoo! to grant email access to his parents. All of a sudden it hit me that digital assets were 'real' and an essential part of an estate. It also made me wonder if I'd want anyone in particular to have access to my email account when I die, or whether I'd want it deleted altogether." - Jesse Davis

"As time goes by, we continually add more digital assets, from files on our computers to accounts on the web. And the value of each one grows. Take a web-hosting service, for example. I may only have one GoDaddy account in my lifetime, but I am always buying more domains within it. I have 20 domains now, and could add many more over my lifetime. If I died tomorrow, who would know how to access and manage them? How would GoDaddy know whom to contact? That's why we created Entrustet." - Jesse Davis

"There are two types of value stored in your online accounts, economic and sentimental.Economically valuable accounts can contain significant monetary value, such as owned web domains and copyrighted photos or products for sale. Sentimentally valuable files and accounts, such as Picasa web albums, hold important family heirlooms. These photos are how my great grandchildren will remember me. Both types of assets need to be considered carefully in building a proper digital estate plan." - Jesse Davis

"Entrustet's Account Guardian is our primary -- and free -- service that allows people to create a secure, updateable list of all important digital assets and decide what should be done with them after death, either having them passed on to an heir or deleted by the executor. Account Guardian gives the executor a roadmap, which drastically reduces the burden on them and loved ones to identify, sort through and manage all kinds of files and accounts. With that in place, a customer can upgrade to the Executor's Assistant(Coming Soon), where we actually do the deleting and canceling for the executor. But the Account Guardian is a good place to start." - Nate Lustig

"I've been surprised by how many young people, most of whom do not even have a traditional estate plan, are interested in protecting their digital assets. When we wrote the original business plan, I envisioned our target customers as 45- to 65-years-old, but that idea was shattered when we won the Students' Choice Award in a business plan competition at the University of Wisconsin. It was a big surprise, and also validated our ideas about how necessary this kind of service is." - Nate Lustig

As President of Clerestory, LLC, Dan Hawthorne provides management and financial consulting and on-demand CFO services to promising startups, small businesses, and non-profits. Before joining Clerestory, he was the Chief Financial Officer of WorldClinic, Inc., a venture-backed startup, and a Vice President in FleetBoston Financial’s Technology and Communications Corporate Finance team. He received his bachelor’s degree from Clark University, an MBA from Babson College and completed Harvard Business School’s financial management program, “Corporate Restructurings, Mergers, and Acquisitions.”.

Kris Stevens is the Principal of BrandAlchemy, LLC, a marketing consultancy specializing in both digital and traditional media. She has worked for some of the world’s most respected media companies, including MTV Networks, AOL and Discovery Communications, in both domestic and international capacities.

Previously, Stevens was Vice President of Digital Strategy for Animal Planet, one of Discovery Communications’ core networks. In that position, Stevens had P&L responsibility for the interactive and digital platform extensions of the network. From 2004 to 2007, Stevens was Vice President of Marketing for Discovery Networks International, where she created a global brand management strategy for the division’s 19 networks and oversaw brand and marketing strategies for three new lifestyle networks and a new global HD network.

Prior to joining Discovery, Stevens was Executive Director, Brand Strategy, and Executive Director, Brand Metrics and Brand Relationship Management, for AOL. Previously, she held several marketing and operations positions at MTV International.

A leader in the fields of telecommunications and information technology, Allan Stern is the guiding force behind Adaptive Engineering. Prior to starting this company, Stern was CEO of AltiComm, a nationwide carrier of local and long-distance telephone services. Its marquee clients included Enterprise Rent-a-Car, GNC and Brookstone. He also served as VP of Research and Development for MediaOne (now Comcast) and founding VP/RGM of RCN, a competitive telephone and cable television company.

As Chief Information Officer for the city of Boston, Stern was responsible for all technology and telecommunications decisions for one of New England's largest IT groups.

Throughout his career, P. Eric Krauss has demonstrated success in finance and operations with both early- and late-stage companies requiring strategic planning, process improvement, budgeting and forecasting, cost reduction, capital-raising, mergers and acquisitions, investor and creditor relations, human resources/benefits administration, manufacturing and IT infrastructure deployment and maintenance.

Krauss served most recently as CFO of Avidyne Corporation. Prior to Avidyne, he was a founding General Partner of Pilot House Ventures Group and was a senior financial officer in several other companies.

Krauss has served on the boards of a variety of private companies and is currently a Trustee of New England Aquarium.

Joseph W. Boucher is a founding shareholder of the Madison, WI, law firm of Neider & Boucher, S.C. His practice emphasizes business legal planning for closely held businesses including formation, financing, mergers and acquisitions. In addition, Boucher currently teaches at the University of Wisconsin - Madison Business and Law Schools.Boucher also is a co-drafter of the original Chapter 183 for LLCs, the amendments to Chapter 183, the Next Economy Legislation of 2002, and the limited liability partnership law.

Since 2005 he has been named a Wisconsin Super Lawyer, and Madison Magazine has consistently selected him as one of Madison’s leading business attorneys and serves on the boards of non-profits and for-profit businesses.

Boucher received a B.A. from St. Norbert College, where he was named a distinguished alumnus in 2004, and received both his JD and MBA from the University of Wisconsin.