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Transforming End-of-Life Care: Melissa Reader on Building Violet
Melissa Reader, founder of Violet, shares how losing her husband inspired a virtual care platform helping families navigate the last stage of life with less regret.
About the guest
Melissa Reader
Founder & CEO of Violet
Melissa Reader is the founder and CEO of Violet, a virtual care platform for the last stage of life. A career consultant who founded and ran multiple consultancies in Sydney, she pivoted into health tech after losing her first husband to cancer when she was in her late thirties. She joined the board of charity Life Circle, rebuilt it as a national not-for-profit, then spun out Violet as a separate tech company after joining the Techstars accelerator with co-founder Tom Hull.
Episode overview
Melissa Reader joins Steve Grace on Give It A Nudge to share the deeply personal story behind Violet, a virtual care platform designed to support people and their families through the last stage of life. What started as grief and regret after losing her husband to cancer became a mission to ensure fewer families go through the same disorganisation and heartbreak.
From personal loss to a startup mission
Melissa was running a consultancy in Sydney with her first husband when he received a sudden, aggressive cancer diagnosis. He died 15 months later in intensive care without a will in place. She was 38, a single self-employed mother of three children under seven. The experience left her with deep regret about conversations they never had, planning they never did, and treatments he should never have undergone. Eight months after his death, a leadership program called Social Leadership Australia became the catalyst for channelling that experience into action. She eventually joined the board of Life Circle, a small charity doing work in end-of-life care, and rebuilt it into a national not-for-profit before realising the real opportunity was in technology.
“I thought a lot about the things that we should have talked about that we just didn’t know how to talk about, couldn’t bring ourselves to talk about, the planning we should have done.”
Melissa Reader 04:52
Blending humanity and technology
Violet is built on a national network of “violet guides,” real people with deep lived experience who deliver evidence-based support programs. The team took over a thousand recordings and transcripts from that guide program and used them to build a digital companion. The AI performs sentiment analysis to gauge emotional readiness, adjusting its tone and depth to meet users where they are. Melissa describes the approach as “bringing humanity and technology together,” a deliberate contrast to AI products that strip out the human element.
“We took just over a thousand of the recordings and transcripts from that program delivery and then used that to build Violet in its digital companion mode.”
Melissa Reader 06:29
The non-tech founder journey
Melissa is candid about not being a technologist. Her co-founder Tom Hull is more technical but would not call himself one either. They brought in an advisory CPTO, Paul Redford, who has deep experience in health tech and fintech. She describes the steep learning curve as “incredibly liberating,” particularly the iterative nature of software development. Five years ago she would have laughed if someone told her she would found a tech company. But technology is the only way to scale the impact she wants to have, and she has embraced the unknown.
The $5 billion problem and the market ahead
Hospitalisations in the last 12 months of life cost roughly $4 to $5 billion per year in Australia alone, and a large part of that is unplanned, unwanted, and unnecessary. Beyond hospital costs, there is what Melissa calls “sad admin,” the distressing paperwork of estate administration, aged care entry, and closing accounts. The product is B2B SaaS, sold to aged care providers, health and life insurers, banks, super funds, law firms, and funeral providers. The initial end-user focus is baby boomers caring for elderly parents. International expansion, particularly into the UK where end-of-life care is the NHS’s second highest priority, is on the roadmap.
“You’ve only got to open any paper and see the crisis that our public health system is in. People in the last year of life do not want to be in hospital. It’s our least preferred place to be and to die.”
Melissa Reader 15:59
Key takeaways
Chapters
00:00Introduction and setting the scene00:18Meet Melissa Reader of Violet01:17Quick pitch on Violet and its mission03:12Transition from consulting to founding Violet04:52Melissa’s personal story and inspiration behind Violet06:29Building Violet: Combining humanity and technology09:59Overcoming challenges in a non-tech founder journey13:10Distribution challenges and initial marketing strategies15:59Winning support and recognition for Violet’s mission21:04Expansion into international markets and future plans25:35Bootstrapping Violet and maintaining equity30:26Future plans and new product launch
Mentioned in this episode
Frequently asked questions
What is Violet and what does it do?
Violet is a virtual care platform for the last stage of life. It helps individuals and families with practical, emotional, and clinical aspects of the final 12 to 18 months, including planning, document management, and connecting with service providers like banks and insurers.
Who founded Violet and why?
Violet was founded by Melissa Reader, a career consultant who lost her first husband to cancer. The regret and disorganisation she experienced during that period drove her to build a platform that helps families plan better and have fewer regrets.
How does Violet use AI in end-of-life care?
Violet trained its digital companion on over a thousand recordings and transcripts from real human guide sessions. The AI performs sentiment analysis to understand a user’s emotional readiness and adjusts its support accordingly. It works in any language, at any time of day.
Who are Violet’s customers?
Violet is a B2B SaaS product sold to aged care providers, home care providers, health insurers, life insurers, banks, super funds, law firms, financial advisors, and funeral providers. The initial end-user focus is baby boomers caring for elderly parents.
How big is the end-of-life care market in Australia?
Hospitalisations in the last 12 months of life cost roughly $4 to $5 billion per year in Australia. There are 5 million baby boomers who could benefit from the product, and up to nine people are affected by every death. The ageing population means annual deaths will double within 15 years.
Is Violet expanding internationally?
Yes. Melissa has plans to take Violet into the UK and US markets. The NHS in the UK faces similar challenges, with end-of-life care ranking as its second highest priority. One in four beds in Australian public hospitals is occupied by an elderly frail person in their final months.
Topics discussed
Full transcript
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Show full transcript (30 minutes, 12 sections)
00:00 Introduction and setting the scene
Steve: Welcome to another episode of Give It A Nudge. Today we have a super, super interesting conversation and we are going to talk about a startup that really celebrates life. And how many of them really do that? So I would like to introduce you to Melissa Reader.
Melissa: Nice to meet you.
Steve: And your company Violet.
Melissa: Thank you for having me.
01:17 Quick pitch on Violet and its mission
Steve: So rather than my explanation of it, let’s hear your explanation. Tell us what Violet is and then we’ll sort of get into the history a little bit more.
Melissa: Yeah, so Violet is a virtual care platform for the last stage of life. It’s really a whole life stage that we just don’t really think about or talk about. We certainly don’t plan for it. About the last 12 to 18 months of a person’s life. And Violet is really designed to help with all of the practical, emotional, and in time clinical aspects of that life stage.
Steve: There’s a lot that happens in that. I’ve been through this with my parents. There’s a lot that happens.
Melissa: Well there’s a lot that should happen and could happen. Unfortunately what we see is that people just do too little too late and there’s no going back. Which kind of all rolls up into a formula of a lot of regret for a lot of people. So that’s part of our mission, let’s try and address that.
04:52 Melissa’s personal story and inspiration behind Violet
Melissa: I was running one of those agencies with my first husband Maro. Pretty busy time of life, we had three little kids all under seven. And he had a very sudden and aggressive cancer diagnosis.
Steve: It’s awful.
Melissa: Yeah, really came from out of the blue. And he died 15 months later. After his death I spent a lot of time thinking about the things that really should have been better.
Steve: I can imagine that that would almost haunt you at night to some degree.
Melissa: I mean we talk about regret. And I was deeply regretful for the way that played out for him, for me as his wife, for our kids, for our family. So I thought a lot about the things that we should have talked about that we just didn’t know how to talk about, couldn’t bring ourselves to talk about, the planning we should have done. He spent weeks and weeks and weeks in hospital away from us. Having a bunch of treatments he should never have had. He died in intensive care. Didn’t even have a will in place.
06:29 Building Violet: Combining humanity and technology
Melissa: Through the not-for-profit we have built a national network of violet guides. Really exceptional people. Think about the McGrath breast care nurses or the Macmillan nurses in the UK. People who deliver evidence-based support programs for anybody going through this. And they all have deep lived experience and they all have particular attributes that we look for and we train and support them. But you can’t scale that.
Steve: No.
Melissa: But we took just over a thousand of the recordings and transcripts from that program delivery and then used that to build Violet in its digital companion mode. I’ve been blown away by the sentiment analysis, the capability of the tool to understand your emotional readiness or your functional readiness to step into this work and be able to adjust and accommodate to meet you where you are.
15:59 Winning support and recognition for Violet’s mission
Melissa: The consultant in me started to look at this. Think of that classic iceberg theory. It’s about $4 or $5 billion a year. It’s around the amount of time people spend in hospital in the last 12 months of life. A large part of that is unplanned, unwanted, and unnecessary. You’ve only got to open any paper and see the crisis that our public health system is in. People in the last year of life do not want to be in hospital. It’s our least preferred place to be and to die.
About the host
Steve Grace is the CEO and co-founder of The Nudge Group, a talent and advisory firm working with Australia’s fastest-growing tech and professional services companies. He has spent two decades recruiting and advising executive teams. Give It A Nudge is where he shares unfiltered conversations with founders, operators, and investors building something worth talking about.
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