Everything started in 2016 with Simon, Chris and Hans. Each with a decade in iGaming, they’d built a strong understanding of what works and what doesn’t – go to market strategies, operational pain points and a quickly changing landscape.

A new player experience was emerging, driven not by content but by a more exciting CRM offering, a player centric experience with better service, faster withdrawals, and exciting promotional engines and gamification. An evolution the technologies of the past were not ready for.

That’s where the Fast Track journey began. They saw a gap in the market and went for it. They bet everything on the idea that for operators to truly deliver exceptional player experiences, the way of working had to change. They needed a new tech stack that provided the solution for real-time customer modeling and automation across multiple jurisdictions, brands, regulations, channels and devices – Fast Track CRM was born.

They have since been first to market with a real-time CRM, Singularity model to scale with 1:1 experiences, Greco as the first gameplay risk engine, an AI-driven gamification system Rewards and most recently – iGamings first natural language platform for CRM, Fast Track AI. 

Fast Track is now turning 10, and has gone from 3 founders to almost 200 people servicing more than 450+ brands worldwide. Still keeping its edge, innovation and bringing new exciting technologies to market.

5 Star sat down with CEO & Co-founder Simon to talk about this journey, what’s behind this success, and what it takes to build a culture of innovation.

Did you know Fast Track would become this successful?

When you set out on a journey like this, you need total conviction and an uncompromising belief in your vision and ability to achieve it. I think you can ask any founder of a successful company, and they will all tell you the same thing. It is almost impossible to make it, and every founder will have a story to share when they almost lost it all. When you build a company from scratch it is everything or nothing, and we were completely dedicated to the cause. So yes, we always knew Fast Track would be a success. The vision of success is what motivates you to keep going. 

What defines Fast Track’s success? What have been the most important aspects over the past 10 years?

People often think that the product defines the company. But when you zoom out and look at the bigger picture, what really matters is the culture. For me, what makes Fast Track so successful is that we have built an environment full of talented people that are optimistic and excited about the future. They seek growth, love learning, approach challenges with a great deal of excitement, curiosity, and an eagerness to always find a better way. Combine this with strong leadership, purpose and vision, and so many exciting things happen. 

Another key ingredient is that our partner’s success is everything to us, we look at ourselves through their eyes, and that motivates us to always do better. Staying true to our values and core beliefs.

What aspect of your leadership style has been most prominent in building Fast Track?

The way I see it, if you intend to contribute with ideas and add value you must first understand the work. You have to spend time in the details, ask the right questions, speak to partners, learn the product, essentially do whatever it takes to understand the full context before you get a seat at the table.

What has helped me in my career is that I’m very confident in my abilities, very curious and rather fearless when it comes to learning something new. Growing up working in fast-food and playing video games, starting my career and later building bigger systems, working with scalable architecture, leading people and large organisations – I’ve always approached everything with a great deal of excitement.I find that the versatility of understanding different things provides me with new perspectives which is hugely valuable. Combine that with humility, and continue to be open to other people’s perspectives, and it becomes very powerful. 

I also work very consciously to inject energy, clarity, and create engagement around our vision and purpose. Ensuring everyone working with us understands they are valued and their individual contributions matter. Same goes for our partners and the industry as a whole.

As Co-founder and CEO, where do you spend most of your time? 

In all honesty, I find myself being a little bit all over the place! Haha. Jokes aside, there are plenty of plates spinning at once, and most of the time is focused on guiding and coaching the organisation and leaders to approach problems the right way. In some cases it’s hands-on shadowing or being shadowed, other times it’s more focused on conversation and building confidence. We learn together all the time. We work a lot with principles and outcomes. How we are configured, how we think when we make decisions and the outcome we are looking for. Once we are aligned I try to empower as much as I can. The more autonomous leaders and teams are, the faster we scale. 

How do you balance promoting from within versus hiring externally? Are you still involved in interviewing new hires? 

Yes! I find it incredibly valuable to meet everyone that joins Fast Track. And we often get praised for our candidate experience, even though it involves more steps than a usual process. As much as we believe in the full context when making decisions as a company we want to give the same benefit to candidates. You can read about Fast Track online – but only in a real conversation can the company and the candidate be able to see if they’re a match on values and culture. 

Promoting vs hiring externally. Yes, this is interesting. We have some great external placements in leadership positions but we tend to find it incredibly difficult. Especially the more senior roles. We almost always promote and grow from within, because living and breathing the culture, understanding our ways is fundamental to succeed. The tradeoff is time, developing a leader seems slower than hiring one. But in my experience, it’s actually faster overall. Onboarding a senior hire into your context and culture often takes just as long, if not longer, than growing someone you see potential in and who understands how you work. Promoting someone from within is one of the most incredible things you can do as a leader.

What drives you as a founder? Scale and sell? Why do it?

Believe it or not, money has never been a key driver. The motivation comes from working with talented people, rallying around a shared vision, being empowered to pursue that vision, challenging the norm and finding better ways to innovate, build things and ultimately transforming the industry. If you do this successfully, commercial success and growth will come as a result. 

Prioritising customer-centricity as opposed to making as much money as possible has also been fundamental in our ability to build the right products, make better decisions and drive long term growth. 

Fast Track is not for sale, this is a project for life! I love the work as much today as I did on day one. So I am committed for a very long time to come.

What’s in store for Fast Track over the next few years?

We’re uncompromising to our vision and promise which we will continue to pursue with great speed. To digitalise the iGaming industry and deliver the first self-learning engagement platform. As we grow, it gives us room to scale both the experience and products at a faster pace.

Fast Track AI and the Singularity model is becoming more deeply embedded than ever and will span seamlessly across all our products. The Rewards capabilities are expanding beyond any other product in the market, and Greco will be positioned as a more natural extension of Fast Track and used to scale bonus strategies.

The pipeline of innovation is existing and new products will not disappoint. We have several transformative initiatives being worked on right now.