Hotjar Co-Founder leaves the behavioural analytics giant to build ‘company of one’

After moving to Malta in 2009, Sweden-born software engineer Erik Näslund – along with four other young co-founders – went on to found Hotjar, a behaviour analytics company that analyses website use.

The successful startup went from strength to strength, growing into one of the biggest behavioural analytics companies in the world. Today, the company – which is headquartered in Malta – boasts a team of over 150 employees and counts over 900,000 organisations as clients.

And now, seven years since its inception, Mr Näslund has announced his departure. In a blog post explaining his decision, he writes “I had helped build the coolest company I ever worked at – but personally, I wasn’t really happy anymore.”

“I recently realised that I haven’t been reflecting enough on important things in my life, and instead I kept myself busy with work. Once the gears started turning it became more and more obvious what I needed to do – leave the company I co-founded,” he continues, describing his desire to thrive within a smaller business setting.

The next step, the entrepreneur reveals, is “creating and running a tiny company from scratch, but all by myself this time.”

Referencing Paul Jarvis’ Company of One, Mr Näslund says it helped him realise what he wanted out of his work: to work on what he believes will positively benefit humanity, build work around his life (and not vice versa) and have complete control over company growth.

“I’m certain I wouldn’t be able to pull this off if I tried to before my years with Hotjar. I was simply too naive and lacked a lot of the skills I’ve gathered over the years. I’ll be forever thankful for what I learned at Hotjar, and all the special moments we shared,” he concludes.