Exclusive interview w/ Thomas Kolbabek, CTO at Golden Whale Productions

To kick things off, could you give our readers a bit of background on what Golden Whale does? What is the company’s primary focus and what systems does it have in place to help its customers?

Golden Whale is a next-generation gaming infrastructure supplier that aims to streamline the process of integrating, modelling and orchestrating strategically relevant models derived from large data sets. We use a combination of data science and machine learning to assist companies in taking their player retention to the next level and maximise the expected lifetime value of their customers. The systems we use greatly reduce the time required to generate learnings and insights from a company’s data, which they can then apply to their products. Ultimately, we believe this will change the way that games and gaming systems are built and operated.

Are there any aspects of Golden Whale’s offering that makes it unique from other data tech companies? If so, how do the solutions that you provide differ from what the competition is doing?

While all data science companies claim to have the best model when it comes to making accurate predictions and segmentations, these are typically black box processes with little to no transparency. One of the things that makes Golden Whale unique is that we build a second layer on top for model orchestration and competition so users can compare all the outcomes from similar data sets. This allows companies to be more independent from single sources and helps them build an evolving system around their modelling that easily can be configured to find specific target values.

Apart from that the combination of long-standing domain know-how and latest methods in data-science lets us increase the learning speed of our customers systems significantly and reduces time between general analysis and useful execution!

Being a relatively new company in the iGaming industry, what were the main challenges that you encountered while establishing Golden Whale and how have you tackled these up until now?

The challenges that we’ve faced have been largely the same as any other innovative company aiming to make an impression in market – that is to say converting initial curiosity and scepticism into excitement and opportunity. Fortunately for us, we began operating at a time when the first wave of machine learning companies had already laid solid foundations for how this incredible technology can be used to benefit the industry. Our goal is now to really push the boundaries of what data science and machine learning can do for platforms and game systems and it’s a challenge we’re really relishing.

How has the experience your team has gained in the past helped to shape what Golden Whale does? Have there been any previous learnings that have influenced your approach to data science?

Our team has accumulated a lot of domain know-how from our backgrounds in gaming and data science that has enabled us to fine-tune our models to deliver optimal results. Of course, our previous experience has allowed us to identify gaps in the market that can be plugged by doing things a little differently, but it’s important to also respect the pace at which data science and machine learning is moving forward. In our field, it’s vital to stay on top of the latest developments and ensure this is what’s influencing and enhancing your product, rather than relying on insights from several years ago.

Golden Whale’s mission statement is to provide tools that “convert gaming companies into learning companies” – what are the key insights that they can expect to gain by using your product?

Our main focus is building products that directly interact with customer behaviour and player experience across different levels of product. We build on existing machine learning and data exploration tools to give partners new insights on how they can maximise efficiency and profits by improving their systems. In order to make full use of these insights, our models are ideally connected to gaming systems in real time with the resulting feedback loop being designed in a smart way. Our unique approach in this area can drastically speed up the process of how businesses can understand and enhance their offering based on the information they already have at their fingertips.

What does Golden Whale have lined up for 2023? Is there a clearly-defined plan for what you hope to achieve and can we expect to see any specific product launches over the coming months?

All younger companies in the data science sector are likely to experience a period of exponential growth during their first few years of operation, and Golden Whale is certainly no different in this respect. We currently have a pipeline with new customer launches, a product roadmap that encompasses many exciting projects and a bank of real-life results that we’re eager to share with our customers. We’re really excited about what’s coming up over the next 12 months and believe our future innovations will help Golden Whale make a real splash in the industry.