You will probably see it if you go to the Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris on Tuesday 1er November: a QR code affixed to the Necropolitan Memory stele. Thanks to your smartphone, he will guide you to the world of André Chabot, the ethnographer of cemeteries.
For Delphine Letort, these QR codes have become a business, in the form of laser-engraved medallions to house the memory of the deceased, the memories of their loved ones: their digital biography.
“I have always been attracted by the funeral professions”, she says today. She launched into entrepreneurship at the age of 48, after having spent twenty years as an employee of the territorial public service. “It was a hyperzone of comfort in a very good atmosphere, a job that I liked, in the administrative direction of the fire brigade. But I changed positions every four years, because I need to learn all the time. I requested training with a view to external mobility. »
Certified in “mourning support”
It took her almost ten years to mature her professional retraining project. For a long time, the only thing she was sure of was that she was not “not to [sa] place in an office ». It was while in Rennes (Ille-et-Vilaine) that she discovered digital biography: “It touched me, because I frequented cemeteries with the feeling that they are places of life. »
After an umpteenth change of position and the resumption of studies in psychology, his decision is made. Once certified in “mourning support”, she launched her business: the self-employed Histoires de vie was born in 2020, in the midst of Covid. She will be worth it Audacity Award of the Union of autoentrepreneurs and independent workers, which salutes the most promising projects of more than one year of existence.
This is not the most promising activity of self-employment. The Urssaf records the largest turnover rather in legal, construction and real estate, with average annual turnover of 17,000 to 20,000 euros. But the initiative of Delphine Letort, which is part of the specialized retail trade, was noticed for its originality.
It is not the first to have invested in this segment of the funeral market to prolong life after death, so that little children know their ancestors better or in a more historical interest for the greats of this world.
A quasi-fashion effect
In the 2010s, QR codes began to flourish on graves: 50 euros for the adhesive to stick on the stele, 95 euros for the ceramic medallion, even 270 euros the medallion engraved on stainless metal. Internet ambassadors had multiplied to offer grieving families the opportunity to install photos, videos, sounds and other forms of tribute to their loved ones in the cloud, with unlimited biography updates.
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