“One of our main principles in business is to be agile on all levels”

Ivan Montik, founder of SOFTSWISS, talks to Focus Gaming News about the company’s approach and how it taught the industry about crypto.

Exclusive interview.- Ivan Montik’s story is an interesting one. As an outsider to the gaming industry, he started SOFTSWISS from scratch with just three people. His experience was in IT rather than gaming, but that proved to have its benefits.

“We looked at the gambling industry and decided to step in because our understanding was that this industry is based on business experts but not IT experts,” he said. “We decided to go in as IT experts to build strong, reliable, stable solutions.

“Step-by-step we started to understand the business, the industry, talking to the people and looking to our clients at the time and building the products.”

It’s been a challenging year, Montik says – but also a very exciting and successful one, with SOFTSWISS’s white-label partners seeing dramatic growth in player values. With value rising several times in a matter of months, Montik’s team has been putting a lot of work in on the technical side to keep everything running smoothly. 

“We needed to on-board a lot of new people in the company to keep growing,” he said, noting that the challenge came at a time when that process changed completely due to the pandemic situation since it had to be done remotely.

“Remote hiring and onboarding were really a challenge, but we did it very well,” he says.

The company also managed to launch new products to market, including sports betting solutions. Part of that comes down to Montik’s drive and energy. 

“I want to really bring my energy to my team every day,” he says. “I think a person can grow and can live life only when he’s doing something, or driving something.”

SOFTSWISS’s approach to crypto gaming

SOFTSWISS really began to make waves when it became a very early proponent of crypto back in 2013. Its adoption of Bitcoin as a payment option got attention, and Montik became something of an evangelist for the new currency’s possibilities.

“I was always thinking we should be innovative and do something different, Montik said, “and one of these innovations at that time was cryptocurrency and bitcoin especially.”

“We were like a crypto teacher for the industry.”

Ivan Montik, founder of SOFTSWISS

He continues: “We convinced several game providers to offer their games to be played for Bitcoin, and this was the biggest challenge I believe because nobody believed in cryptocurrency and Bitcoin at the time. But after several years of being in this market and showing to the industry that it’s possible, the industry immediately recognised us as a serious player.”

He’s still convinced of the benefits, in no way dissuaded by Bitcoin’s volatility.

“Crypto is freedom,” he says. “It’s fast, it’s controlled by the player itself and the casino itself. It doesn’t give you any chargebacks. It’s a new way of doing financial transactions.”

“Be honest, be fast, be agile”

SOFTSWISS was quick to see the potential of crypto for the gaming industry, and that comes down very much to Montik’s philosophy and way of working. 

“One of our main principles in business is to be agile on all levels,” Montik says. “To think agile, to have agile in the management processes, to have agile in the compliance processes, in the development, in all parts of our business.

He adds: “My principles of life are my principles of business: to be honest with each other, to provide top-level service.”

“Our aim is to be a global player and go into local markets”

SOFTSWISS aims to cover the entire ecosystem of the gaming industry, from casino platforms and aggregation to payment gateways, payment processes. It has plans to expand and enter diverse local markets.

Montik concludes: “Our target is to transform gambling into gaming. So basically, to give the opportunity for players not to be attached to the gambling itself but to have fun and spend time like we do with friends in the pub, watching soccer, etc.”

Check out the full interview with Ivan Montik on the Focus Gaming News YouTube channel. Don’t forget to subscribe!