Smartsupp

Smartsupp is the live chat and visitor recording platform Radek Novak bootstrapped from Brno, Czech Republic in 2013. It combines a standard live chat widget with session recording (similar to Hotjar) — so when a visitor starts a chat, the support agent can see a playback of exactly what the customer did on the site before asking for help, dramatically improving first-response quality. The company grew to $5M+ ARR and 50,000+ customers, becoming one of the most widely used live chat tools in Central and Eastern Europe. The session recording feature turned a commodity (live chat widgets are everywhere) into a competitive product: agents who can see "the customer tried to click this button three times before giving up" can diagnose the real problem in seconds instead of asking clarifying questions. Smartsupp's freemium model (free for 1 agent with 100 recorded sessions per month) generated massive adoption across Eastern European e-commerce stores, which then upgraded when they hired more agents or needed unlimited recordings.