French ‘start-up’ team wins ‘Best Overall Experience’ award at International Hotjar Xawards held in Malta

It was a hub of excitement and innovation at the two-day event organised by local company Hotjar, held last week at Villa Rosa. Over 100 guests were flown in from 19 different countries thanks to enterprising David Darmanin and Marc von Brockdorff, two of the founders of Hotjar, who came up with the idea of holding ‘The Oscars for the best Digital Experiences at the Early Startup stage’ in Malta for the first time this year.

“We organised the XAwards primarily to recognize great new digital experiences.” said Dr Darmanin, CEO of Hotjar. “Hotjar is entirely bootstrapped, so we felt that targeting ‘early-stage startups’ is our own way of ‘giving back’. Moreover, we are always on the look-out for amazing talent and the event was a great way to make new contacts and create ambassadors for Hotjar.”

Out of the 100 people who flew in from all over the world, there were the 10 finalist teams who were chosen out of over 640 teams from 63 countries who originally submitted their application to participate in the Hotjar Xawards.

On the final evening, the 10 fi- nalists had a chance to make their final pitch to the guests present and, more importantly to the judges – David Darmanin, Marc Von Brockdorff and Christian Thaler-Wolski (Saas Start-Up Advisor) – on why they deserve to win the coveted cash prize of €20,000.

Before the final pitches, Dr Darmanin thanked all those attending, and those involved in making the event happen including their ad- viser Christian Thaler-Wolski, his co-founders, Jonathan Vella, Johan Malmberg, Eric Naslund and Marc von Brockdorff, Ilona Busby from YPA and Ryan from Jugs. “I would also like to say a special thank you to our guest speakers for sharing amazing ‘hair-blown backwards’ wisdom. This is where the ‘power of asking’ comes into play. Who would have thought that someone like Ryan Singer from Basecamp would accept to join us in this tiny intimate global event?”

Dr. Darmanin also gave special thanks to his wife and family and to the Hotjar team who now number close to 40 people working remotely all over the world. “We are very selective in our recruitment process and each and every member of our team is valuable,” he said.

The excitement was palpable as the 10 teams who flew in from seven different countries (France, UK, Serbia, The Netherlands, Poland, Bulgaria and Israel) took to the stage, one by one, to make their final three-minute pitch.

From virtual personal assistants and digital website-builders, to holiday planning apps and customised music solutions, each team’s idea catered to a user’s need which, in the team’s opinion, has not yet been successfully fulfilled.

It was a dynamic 30 minutes with each team expressing how it came up with the idea in the first place and the user interest it managed to garner since launch. After listening to every team, one can understand why these 10 finalists were shortlisted out of the 600+ applicants

Following the final pitches, the judges deliberated for 15 minutes and then gave their final verdicts which were as follows:

‘The Best Tech Achievement Award’ and a cash prize of €5,000, went to the Polish team behind ‘Real Eye’ which is the first webcam eye-tracking software to be made accessible and affordable. Launched only three months ago, ‘Real Eye’ allows a website owner to see what its users see on its website, thus revealing their unconscious behaviour and providing valuable insights into reasons for lower conversion rates.

‘The Best Mobile App Experience Award’ and a cash prize of €5,000, went to the French team who developed ‘SoundR’ which is a novel way of discovering ‘the right music at the right time’ by converting feelings into playlists.

‘ The Best Overall Experience Award’ and the grand prize of €20,000 went to ‘Crisp IM’, from France. The concept behind ‘Crisp’ is built on the premise that more than 50 per cent of business people prefer instant messaging as a communication tool, rather than email or phone calls. The team created a one-stop-solution for a company’s employees to communicate with each other and to all customers via a collaborative inbox. With 5,000 active users and one million messages being currently sent on a weekly basis, we foresee that we will hear a lot more about Crisp IM in the very near future.

To celebrate the culmination of the two-day event, a reception was held at Villa Rosa where all guests and participants could finally relax and let their hair down to the sound of local band ‘The Travellers’.

Dr Darmanin revealed that Hotjar will probably hold the event again next year. “We feel the event was a huge success. We achieved our goals and are excited to hear our participants’ feedback which will help us fine-tune the Xawards to be an even bigger success next year.”