Women in gaming: Sarah Butterfass on product development
In the last of a five-part series of women in gaming interviews, FanDuel Group’s CPO lifts the lid on tech migrations, product innovation and the benefits of information sharing within Flutter Entertainment
FanDuel Group chief product officer (CPO) Sarah Butterfass joined the operator last October – working fully remotely due to the pandemic – from outside the industry to lead its product development team. Having previously been CPO for online marketplace Groupon, Butterfass has more than 20 years’ experience driving and executing product strategies and overseeing new product launches with a focus on customer engagement.
This customer focus is one of the key skills Butterfass has bought to her role at the Flutter Entertainment-owned business that boasts the leading US sports betting operator and the second largest DFS brand in FanDuel. “For me, something that I’m passionate about and have done throughout my career is really making sure everything starts with the customer and being customer-first,” she says. “It’s something that attracted me to FanDuel during the interview process. I think it’s something that I’ve really pulled on my experiences from Orbitz, E*TRADE and Groupon in terms of continuing to evolve how we build our products,” she explains.
Last December, FanDuel completed the migration of its mobile sportsbook onto Scientific Games’ OpenSports platform, which has received “great” feedback from customers so far, including in the app stores. In fact, FanDuel’s sports betting app once again took top honours in Eilers & Krejcik Gaming’s recent app performance testing, with the product praised for its zippy, intuitive UX and market-leading same-game parlay product.
Butterfass says: “I think it comes back to that focus on putting the customer first as we’re building our products and ensuring they are both easy to use but at the same time are engaging for our very experienced sports bettors across our verticals.
“If you look at the move on to our PAM and wallet that was great in terms of just an easier customer experience where they don’t have [to have] multiple accounts with us. In terms of moving on to our own technology, we currently have four states [West Virginia, Illinois, Colorado and Indiana] that are live on that new platform.”
The internal technology FanDuel is developing is built on top of the Flutter platforms, which Butterfass points out is one of the big advantages of being part of the Flutter Entertainment group, the world’s largest public online gambling company with a market cap today of £22bn. “We do a really good job of information sharing. We still are building our own experiences and on top of the Flutter betting platform, but I think it’s a great foundation for our new platform on which we can innovate as FanDuel,” she remarks.
The main challenge with the migration was to focus on moving onto FanDuel’s own technology while ensuring it had the bandwidth to continue to launch innovative features such as same-game parlays. “So, it comes down to just making sure we have the right number of resources and we are aggressively hiring, which has been great. We’ve brought in some really great talent and that has enabled us to continue to move forward,” she adds. With FanDuel’s fast-paced hiring spree as the company scales, Butterfass explains that the operator is looking for a hybrid approach of recruiting online gaming expertise as well as people outside of the industry, with its engineering team currently totalling more than 300. The operator has also unveiled plans to build a new 68,000 sq ft technology hub in Atlanta, Georgia at a cost of $15m (£10.5m). This new facility will primarily focus on supporting the company’s product development, tech, and IT operations, with more than 900 new jobs to be created by the firm over the next five years.
On its same-game parlay offering, which Butterfass says FanDuel was first to market with, the operator is continuing to innovate while adding additional sports since it launched. Another area of focus in terms of product development is personalisation, which is an area the online gambling industry on both sides of the pond has struggled to nail like other sectors such as e-commerce.
“How do we make sure we are really giving the customer access to exactly what they are looking for, and just make it simple? So, a lot of the features that you will see coming out of all of the verticals are very focused on ease of use and just making it a great experience.”
A key part of that great experience, as well as driving revenue and maximising player LTV, is cross-sell from sports betting into casino in those states where online casino is legal, and Butterfass says the operator has seen a “ton of cross-sell” in Michigan since the market launched in January. “The casino cross-sell is interesting in that it provides new and fun opportunities for customers to engage with FanDuel in a different way.”
FanDuel’s commitment to producing top-class products is clearly evident from its dominant position in the app rankings. According to Online Gambling Quarterly (OGQ), FanDuel ranked ninth in the average app download ranking in Q4 2020 on iPhone in the US sports category. With OGQ suggesting DraftKings and FanDuel “will stay on top” as they will likely be able to increase their market share even more, it looks like FanDuel’s first-mover advantage is reaping the benefits
FanDuel Group and Flutter Entertainment firmly believe in gender equality, which is evident from the women that hold senior positions within the group, according to Kevin Hennessy, director, publicity at FanDuel Group. “We are proud to have amazing female colleagues working in every department of our company, at all levels, across all offices.
“Diversity, equality and inclusion is a continued focus as we grow our business. Our leadership team is currently comprised of several accomplished women including our president, Amy Howe; chief people officer Lainie Cooney; chief risk and compliance officer Carolyn Renzin and our chief product officer Sarah Butterfass. Each exemplify our company principles and are leading FanDuel in critical growth areas,” he says.
Opportunity knocks
Inspiring women share their thoughts on attracting more women into senior roles within the online gambling sector
“We need to be better in showing women the opportunities there are in online gambling. This in an industry in its infancy where the companies with the best tech, user experiences and employees will be the winners. If you are a woman here you have all the possibilities if you choose the right company, a company where the culture and values are in line with yours.”
Martina Åkerlund, CEO, Triggy
“As a product management specialist and, more recently, a first-time tech founder, I look at attracting female talent from a tech and product perspective. Building my start-up dev team from scratch and hiring female engineers is certainly a challenging task. Firstly, the talent pool is still very narrow, especially when it comes to senior developers. It isn’t something only our industry is faced with. Still, we probably have a more challenging time to tap into this pool due to a fair level of stigma associated with online gambling and very little understanding of what we, as an industry, actually do.
Our environment is also a long way off gender parity when it comes to executive leadership positions, and I believe where it suffers most is at the CPO and CTO level. Hence, there aren’t many role models to aspire to, and it’s not easy to see a clear career development path for an ambitious and driven female product or tech professional. Being an early stage, small organisation, I cannot pursue my gender diversity vision with full force just yet, but I try my best by taking small steps in the right direction from the very beginning. I am an active and outspoken member of Women in Tech communities in relevant markets. I advocate for all that makes our industry an exciting and forward-thinking one, including outstanding product innovation and working with the latest technologies as well as inclusion initiatives. My team and I dedicate additional time and effort when searching for candidates to reach them in the not-so-obvious recruitment spaces. To further widen the targeted group, we are also open to remote, international locations and offer a great level of flexibility, known to be one of the best solutions to attract female talent into tech.
Karolina Pelc, founder and CEO, SharedPlay.io
“The industry needs to transform itself for the future with a clear focus on sustainability, tech and diversity. This would encourage not only women but also the younger generation to work in gambling.”
Daniela Johansson, deputy CEO and CRO, Paf
“The number of women in gaming is certainly growing, but there’s still a lot of work to do regarding equity and levelling the playing field.
It’s important we strengthen the female voice and give women a seat at the table to join, and lead, the conversation. As a member of DraftKings’ executive leadership team, I represent the many women across the company and it’s my goal to demonstrate to others, both internally and externally, that not only is their voice important, it’s essential.”
Jennifer Aguiar, chief compliance officer, DraftKings
“I believe that, in order to promote the inclusion of women at the top, it is necessary to create widespread awareness of the importance of the legal gambling sector in society and of how much professionalism and tenacity are needed to achieve excellent results, combining responsibility and sensitivity.
In addition, companies have to recognise and promote these values, as happened in my case: through an intense path of individual growth, I’m managing the lottery area in Italy. I hope that other realities will also show this openness, with actions capable of being attractive to the best talents by promoting balanced working conditions.”
Rosangela Robbiani, managing director lottery, Sisal