Hotjar revolutionized behavioral analytics software with a user-friendly, affordable tool… but here’s how they got their first users before having anything built to show them.

Basic Details

• Founders: David Darmanin, Jonathan, Mark, Eric, Johan

• Founded: 2014

• Time to First Customer: 2 months

• First Customer Source: Word of mouth, direct marketing

• Industry: Behavioral analytics software for websites

• Distribution Model: B2B (Business to Business)

Background

Hotjar was created with a clear mission: to help businesses visually understand how their users interact with their websites. This need stemmed from the founders' background in direct consumer marketing and conversion rate optimization. Disappointed with the high prices and cumbersome sales processes of existing enterprise solutions, David Darmanin and his co-founders decided to build an affordable, effective, and user-friendly behavioral analytics tool that even smaller companies could leverage.

First Customers

Aligned with the SFBL ethos, the company launched a marketing campaign even before the product development was complete. They created an initial landing page and started promoting it aggressively. More on that below!

Leveraging David's background in conversion rate optimization (CRO), the team used direct marketing techniques and word of mouth to generate initial interest. Within the first two months, they noticed names on their signup list that they didn't recognize, indicating organic growth and word-of-mouth success.

The Customer-Funded Approach

Hotjar's approach to sales and marketing was meticulous and multifaceted. Here’s how they did it:

1. Landing Page and Alpha Testing: The founders built a landing page to gather interest while the engineers worked on the product’s alpha version.
   
   

   

   2014 HotJar coming soon page

   
   Notice this line: “FREE Early Access is only available until the 15th July 2014 – So book your spot now.” Hotjar leveraged time sensitivity and scarcity to motivate visitors to sign up now. It’s not a radical idea, but often founders forget to answer the question of “why sign up now?”. Visitors have a tendency towards inaction so you need to find a way to motivate them now.
   

2. Direct Marketing and Word of Mouth: The initial interest was driven by sharing the landing page within their network, leveraging strong positioning and CRO principles.
   

3. Incentive-Based Referral Program: Hotjar introduced a referral scheme with both fixed rewards, like free months and T-shirts, and competitive rewards, like lifetime accounts for those who recruited the most users.
   

   

4. Weekly Communication with Leads: David sent weekly emails to their growing list, updating them on progress, challenges, and internal workings, fostering a sense of community and engagement.
   
   "I was writing a weekly email list to everyone on the list, telling them what we're working on, the internal workings, the challenges that we're facing. So rather than doing content, we were leveraging word of mouth, paid marketing, and then… sending emails to our group to kind of create this a little bit of a community, which helped again spread the word" — David
   

5. Paid Advertising: Hotjar targeted specific personas (digital marketers, product designers, product managers) on platforms like Facebook to drive traffic to their landing page. They iterated on ad copy and visuals until they found a high-performing combination.
   
   View an ad breakdown on Adfolio here
   

   

6. Leveraging Content Partnerships: They approached large publications with significant email lists and paid for email blasts, using their high-performing Facebook ad copy.
   
   "We went to big publications that had huge email lists, right? So imagine Designer Monthly, for example, or Smashing Magazine and whatnot. And we went to them and said, Hey, we've got this really valuable, interesting new product, which is on beta, right? So there's huge value to your readership. How much do we have to pay you to do an email blast to your whole list?"

7. Viral Marketing: They used platforms like Early Bird, BetaList, and ProductHunt to drive further interest and signups.

Key Milestones

• 2014: Hotjar is founded by David Darmanin and his co-founders.

• Within 2 Months: Secure first customers through initial landing page signups and word of mouth.

• From 2014 to 2015: Built a launch list of 60,000 emails through direct marketing and incentivized referrals.

• Late 2014: Launched beta, converting an initial wave of users.

• 2015: Reached $1 million ARR six months after beta launch.

• 2016: Grew from $1 million ARR to $3 million ARR through continued advertising and word of mouth.

• Early 2021: Considered acquisition offers and ultimately sold to Contentsquare.

Lessons Learned

Hotjar's journey offers several valuable lessons:

1. Start Marketing Early: Build anticipation and a customer base even before your product is fully developed.

2. Leverage Your Network: Initial customers often come from within your own network. Don’t be afraid to ask for support.

3. Incentivize Referrals: Referral programs that offer genuine value can drive significant word-of-mouth growth.

4. Use Paid Advertising Strategically: Understand your customer acquisition cost and experiment with different ad creatives and platforms.

5. Communicate Regularly: Keep your potential customers engaged with regular updates about your progress and challenges.

6. Optimize for SEO: Utilize backlinks and content strategies to build domain authority early on.

David Darmanin’s approach to building Hotjar was a masterclass in combining effective marketing strategies with a deep understanding of customer needs. His focus on creating a user-friendly, affordable product led to tremendous success and a very rewarding exit. Other startups can learn a lot from Hotjar’s story about the power of strategic planning, hard work, and a relentless focus on customer satisfaction.

If you want to hear more from David at HotJar directly, here are some podcasts he appeared on:

• Startups For the Rest of Us

• The SaaS Revolution Show

• Everybody Hates Marketers

• Indie Hackers

This post was created by combining existing resources, independent research, and my analysis to create a unique piece of content. I did not have first hand knowledge of any information and some things may be wrong. If I got something wrong, please let me know!