The CEO question: Why platform selection starts when tech leaves the room

I have sat through more platform demos than I can easily recall, and the pattern is almost always the same. Product teams lean forward and start a checklist: “Show me dynamic bonuses, a fully configurable casino lobby, gamification.” Technology teams move into code-review mode: “We would build it differently.” Everyone feels productive, everyone has an opinion, and the demo room is busy with detail. Then the CEO enters, with fewer words and far more at stake, and asks questions that matter most: “Can I trust you? Do you have experience in this geo? Can we recover our investment within two years?”

Deals rarely fail because a single feature is missing or the technology stack is inadequate. They fail because no one can clearly link features to revenue, demonstrate understanding of the target market, or present a credible story around ROI and risk. The gap between what is showcased in demos and what actually secures a contract is significant. In the end, those three CEO questions about trust, geo experience and payback are the real filter every platform choice passes through.

Features and architecture versus business reality

While features are visible, KPIs are not. It’s easy to fall in love with a drag-and-drop CRM that promises up to 80% retention, +25% extra FTDs and a 20% boost in LTV, all while cutting operating costs. It’s exciting to see a ‘loyalty graveyard’ turned into 75% retention and +20% LTV when gamification is done properly. But those numbers can only come from disciplined use of those features in a specific market, with a clear revenue model behind them. When we ask only “Can you do quests?” instead of “How will quests move my ARPU in this geo?”, we’re already in the illusion; treating capability as if it were value.

Tech teams fall into their own version of the same trap. They hear “platform” and immediately reach for the checklist. We can talk through it all day: 30,000 bets per second, 1,000,000 bets settled per minute with 99.99% uptime. For engineers, these numbers are their natural focus. But the CEO doesn’t buy “30,000 bets per second”; they buy “we won’t crash during the World Cup and lose seven figures in one night”. Put differently, the technical brag has to be translated into a business statement: the ability to handle peak traffic without downtime, lost revenue or damage to the brand. Only then does it start to answer the CEO’s question about whether the platform can support a realistic two-year payback.

Who really decides? Mapping the true decision makers

On paper, platform selection looks like a product-tech-operations process. In reality, they’re preparing a recommendation for a much smaller group of people: the CEO, the chief revenue officer and, indirectly, the investors and board. Those are the people who will own the migration risks, sit in front of the numbers every quarter and explain why they moved from a ‘known devil’ legacy stack to something new.

Inside the organisation, the conversation will always start as ‘features and roadmap’. In the board pack, it’s translated into a different vocabulary: time-to-market, time-to-ROI, exposure during migration, regulatory resilience and whether this partner can still deliver when the market or tax rules change overnight. Our job, as a platform provider, is to bridge those two conversations.

Trust is crucial for decision makers. For a CEO, “Can I trust you?” means: “If something breaks, are you hiding behind a ticket number or sitting in the room with us?” That’s why we’ve built the operating model around partnership. Every client gets a dedicated team: a delivery manager, an account manager, a tech lead and a growth expert who stays long after go-live, helping with launches, performance tuning and campaigns as an extension of the operator’s own staff. Additionally, we structure early ‘hypercare’ periods around new launches, providing VIP support for the first four weeks and assigning a named account manager to ensure personalised touch.

“I want a site like [top brand]”: What that request really means

If I had a euro for every time an operator told me, “I want a site like [a brand that crushes it in this geo],” I could probably retire early. On the surface, it sounds like a design brief: copy the layout, the widgets, the lobby. But actually, it’s shorthand for: “I want their conversion, their retention and their profit curve in this market.” It’s a performance benchmark disguised as a UI request. When a CEO asks, “Do you have experience in this geo?”, they are checking whether you have already built something that performs well enough in the same local conditions.

When a brand is ‘killing it’ in, say, Africa, it’s because they’ve solved for local realities: devices, bandwidth, betting habits, payments and regulation. When we built a lightweight sportsbook frontend for Mojabet, the key win was reducing load times from over 10 seconds to approximately 1.5 seconds on local devices. That alone drove a 12% uplift in conversion from registration to first deposit and pushed retention from roughly 10% to 25%.

This is why we built geo-specific presets. They’re preconfigured market templates that incorporate language, currency, content mix and other settings tailored for regions such as MENA, Africa, Southeast Asia and Latam. Presets let operators start with realistic pricing for each market. Tuning margins and engagement to local behaviour has delivered GGR increases in the 10%-20% range and double-digit engagement uplifts for operators willing to move away from generic settings.

When I hear “I want a site like [top brand],” I open the scoreboard: geo presets, margin strategy, integration model, CRM and segmentation for that specific market. The homepage is the easy part. The hard part – the part CEOs and boards actually care about – is the machinery that makes that homepage perform.

Integration and post-launch: where deals are won or lost

For most CEOs, the scary part is what happens after the contract is signed. That’s where hidden costs and delays show up: extra development time, PSPs that aren’t ready, KYC flows that need rework, bonus logic that has to be rebuilt. When a CEO signs off, the thought in the back of their mind is: “If this launch goes awry, it’s on me.” Every issue or delay is lost GGR, so integration is part of the ROI calculation.

From a CEO’s point of view, that’s what de-risks the decision. Integration has a clear map, and post-launch doesn’t mean “good luck”. This is also where the answer to “Can I trust you?” is proven in practice:whether you launch when you promised and whether you are present when something breaks. Without that, even the best platform is just a liability with a nice UI.

Deals are won when those same features and that same architecture are framed as a business story: higher margin through geo-specific presets, uplift in LTV and retention, safer and faster entry into new markets, less downtime and fewer regulatory surprises. In the end, the decision still comes down to three questions: Can I trust you? Do you understand my market? And will this platform pay for itself in a timeframe my board can accept? That’s the conversation that starts when the CEO walks into the room and that’s the one that decides whether you’re a vendor with a nice demo or a partner they’re willing to bet the business on.

Yevhen Krazhan is a chief sales officer (CSO) at GR8 Tech. An experienced C-level executive with expertise in the telco, IT and entertainment sectors, Krazhan has consistently demonstrated a talent for building sustainable business models, driving results and increasing shareholder value.

At GR8 Tech, he is focused on building data-driven and client-centric sales systems, strengthening feedback loops between commercial and product teams, and building a strong, sustainable agent and distribution network.