Episode 34: Building a Great Product and a Solid Team

Hey listeners, welcome to SphereCast, a podcast all about technology, technology advice, technology inspiration, and how real entrepreneurs have used technology to build their businesses from the ground up.

If you're wondering how technology can support your business goals, rest assured, our guests have been there and done that.

More often than not, a great product is the outcome of a great team. What are attributes of great teams, then? Unprecedented skills, relentless innovation, openness, and transparency. And the attributes of great products? Impeccable quality, integrity, and, of course, the "aha!" factor. It's true that one leads to the other. And what's at the center of it all? Remarkable leadership.

Luke here with SphereCast, and this week, I interview Miruna Bicoli, Chief Operating Officer at BlueBat Games, a Vancouver-based company that produces white-label social casino games for ground-based casinos. Before being promoted to the Chief Operating Officer in January of this year, Miruna spent nearly two years as BlueBat's VP of Product and Managed Services. Prior to her run at BlueBat, Miruna held a variety of product, operations, and customer service roles at various gaming and software companies.

Miruna's passions for product and leadership come to the forefront throughout this interview. To Miruna, the data only tells part of the story. A true product professional will know how to find the balance between hard data and real customer feedback. And for product leaders, even while navigating this friction, they must stay concerned with developing employees, encouraging innovation, and promoting integrity. All of this and so much more on this week's episode of SphereCast. So without further delay, here's my conversation with Miruna.

Hello everyone, welcome to SphereCast. And today, our guest is Miruna Bicoli. Miruna, welcome to the show.

It's very nice to be here, and I'm happy to be able to talk to you today.

Wonderful. So, okay, we're going to start with an icebreaker, which we normally do here at SphereCast. So could you share with us something that most people don't know about Miruna? Something unique.

I'm pretty sure that you guys are used to having very interesting people. I like to consider myself passionate, not really interesting, unless, you know, we have the same passion.

I don't have this amazing, interesting story about me, but I do have something that is definitely funny and I oftenly go back and think about. I am at origins I'm Romanian. English is not my first language, and I do have some hints of Hungarian roots, very far from from English. So before I started my gaming industry journey, my second language was actually French, not English. I studied in French for, I would say, 12-plus years. I studied intensively French in university, and hard topics, like statistics and math and economics, so I was—

So you learned the the hardest words in French, I guess.

Yes, exactly! Exactly. Yeah, I was absolutely flawless in French. I forgot everything by now, but—

We won't ask you anything in French here.

No, no, please don't. And then I got this nice opportunity to interview in a startup for as as a customer service manager in a in a gaming company. So I got to the interview and I was so uncomfortable in English. Everything for me in English was coming out it was it was so hard.

So the hiring manager, we started the interview, and the hiring manager actually told me years after that the reason he hired me was that I was very interested in the product. And I actually wasn't. I was just trying to hide my poor English and trying to to answer just, you know, with with few words and ask him questions, so I will get him to talk about it.

Yeah, so I could say that, you know, we're talking now about about what I'm doing, and I am in this industry as as a pure accident, because that's that's what I was I was hired because I asked questions.

And you were saying there's nothing interesting to share. Wow, that's quite a story, you know. You didn't plan to be where you ended, and—

I did not. I did not.

I like that. I like that. I'm not where I intended to be, and I think this is why I hate planning. I don't hate planning, but I don't plan much in my life, because I think wherever my unplanned life has taken me, I like it so far. So let the journey carry on, you know?

Yeah, you need to be— Exactly. I think you need to be ready for for anything. I think you plan for something and then your plans change, so you need to, you know, quick quickly change everything in your life just to adapt to the new plan.

That's how you challenge yourself. And, you know, sometimes or most times when I don't know something, I always just park it, you know, let's say put it on a back burner and I tell myself, "Hey, listen, you are smart enough to come up with an answer when when it will happen. No need to think about it now. Just wait for it and something will come out," you know, positively in the end. So that's my opinion as well. So great, that's an amazing story to begin this episode.

I'm going to dive right into business and tech part here. So talk to us about your most recent venture. So in your own words, what is BlueBat Games, and why did you join this company?

So BlueBat is actually one of one of a kind. It's it's a business-to-business social casino developer. We are making social casino games for land-based casinos. Oftenly, you have land-based casinos who want to enter the social casino industry just because it's it's a huge opportunity there, and they don't have the resources or the knowledge or time to to deal with with the product.

So we partner with with them and create their online platforms and help them enter this this industry. The products are are for pure entertainment. There's no gambling involved, unlike their land-based operation.

And I joined the company because I am I am a product-focused person at at the core. And working in the customer service industry, I can say I witnessed how bad products impact customers. So I became very interested in dedicating my my full attention to product and monetization and building these cool features that that make everything in a game so entertaining. So that's how BlueBat happened for me.

Okay. It's all about the experience and improving it for the customer, and you were on the floor as a customer success manager. You saw the problems, and you're addressing them in your position now, which is great. Okay, that's that's quite good, good to hear.

So let's let's go towards product, then. So tell us about the product and its journey so far since joining BlueBat Games. I already kind of am understanding this that different since you are developing these platforms for different customers of yours, every challenge must be somewhat different and, for the lack of a better word, I'll keep saying different, different. But it must be, you know, slightly, every time you get a new customer, there's something new to do, something new to implement for them. So tell tell us about the product journey, and are you reshaping the whole thing now since joining, or was it already in progress and you are, you know, you were lucky enough to join a team that's on track to do great things?

I can say I I was lucky enough to join a team that was already on a path in terms of choosing the technology.

The product itself was somewhat shaped. It it had a vision, a very good vision, and I I joined a team that was managed by one of my previous mentors, so I I agreed with the with the vision. It was a vision that, you know, I I I definitely embraced.

The technology was already set, as I said, and and I must agree that, given the business need, is is the best technology to use. We are relying on on a technology that is not usually is not very oftenly used in games. It's it's called React React Native, but it allows us and and the business to to be very efficient. It allowed allows us to develop the product easily between the existing platforms and minimize the need of of additional resources.

I did, however, build the product roadmap that we currently have, and I own it and I tend to follow it unless some disruption occurs, which usually happens in the gaming industry, so—

So, okay. With with with that, I think I was just going towards the challenges that you're tackling or have tackled since joining BlueBat. Could you share some examples? And also, what when you share examples, I think it might be for for the audience, if you could talk about a decision that you took and the reasons behind it.

For me, at least, I'm not going to talk about challenges in the gaming industry, because the challenges are the same for for all the companies. I'm going to talk about my personal challenge here, and it was actually it comes from the uniqueness that BlueBat has. It it combines the business-to-business world with business-to-consumer. I'm coming from B2C.

So we we are building here a platform for our clients, which are the the casinos, but we need to have in mind our end users, which are the players, not the client. So I I think the main challenge is always trying to have both B2B and B2C world aligned. Like, what do you do if you if your experience tells you that what the client wants will not be what the end user needs? So then you have to say that the customer is not always right, and and how do you how do you do that without, you know, upsetting the client?

So I I think that's when when data analysis and end-user feedback really help you shape the product and really convince people that your vision is the correct one. So that that was my main challenge. I I don't have any particular moment when this happened, because this is a constant in in in BlueBat life. Like, it's a back-and-forth.

I I would imagine so. So so it's it's the customer B2B side to get them to buy into something because you obviously, as as somebody who's worked closely with the end user, you know what's going to work and what's not going to work, and challenging that opinion of the product people from the other side, okay, okay, I can see the issues there because, yeah, everyone has everyone is right in, you know, in the end.

Everyone has an opinion, you know. Everyone has an opinion, especially in product.

But yeah, I guess who wants to fail and learn learn learn things the difficult way? That's that's the challenge. Okay, okay, I understand it. So tell us something about one of the most or, you know, I'm sure there are many lessons. I have a lesson every day, I think. A failure every day. I'm allowed 10 mistakes a day by my boss, so—

That's good! You have a good boss.

Not that I make them, so, but I'm allowed up to 10 mistakes. That that was during my probation, I guess. So, okay, I would love to understand some of the most valuable lessons you have learned so far in the gaming journey, let's say.

I think I learned to to combine this I I think the entire industry is very data-driven. I think what I learned from my customer service background is that data is not always the most important. You know, data without without context tells you nothing.

So, you know, I I learned a very valuable lesson that, you know, you have you have amazing access to data that can tell you user behavior and everything that users are doing in your product. But if you don't combine it with actual feedback and discussing and talking and seeing how your user interacts with the product, then you basically have nothing. You only have assumptions.

So I think that was the the most valuable lesson I learned. I I've seen some some product professionals just relying on data and failing miserably, and I've also seen the other way around, like just relying on on feedback and failing. So I think you need to you need to could definitely combine these two.

Each on its own is not enough to create a product that's going to work, so—

Yeah. Exactly.

Because that that's where the trade-offs are going to happen. Okay, what do we prioritize, experience or data? They both will sometimes say a different story, and you have to kind of balance that out. So appreciate that. And yeah, data is important in the gaming. I guess you you were talking about React Native, so can we say, is it fair to say that some of your customers are putting these games on some social media platforms as well? Like, could you tell me a little bit more there about how is How can I find BlueBat Games? How can I play that game? Someone's on social media or on the internet?

So you won't find the games that scream BlueBat Games, because we offer a white-label solution for our clients, so the the point is to actually have the client's brand scream. We're just in the in the background.

So we do all the games we have are on the mobile platforms, on iOS and and on Android, so it's easy to to find them in the stores, unless the client wishes to not have it available in specific countries, which which obviously can happen.

And we are relying on Facebook, but only for for login methods. So we we do not Because mainly the our clients have their own databases of players, so their target audience are actually land-based casino players. So they don't care really about making the product go viral and just have this—

So it's not about selling so much. It's all about reaching out to people who are already their customers, to keep them more—

It's keeping keeping the user engaged with their brand as soon as they left the the land-based casino.

Okay. Yeah, it's a it's a very competitive industry, I guess.

It is. Definitely is. And, you know, you're swimming with the big sharks. You're talking about the casino industry here, which is very competitive and very tough.

Very tough indeed. I want to ask you something. So what do you feel are the most difficult decisions for a VP of product to make?

This is a this is a tough one.

So I did have a a small mention of of one of them in in one of the prior questions. To be fair, I think there are many difficult decisions that anyone working in in the product will have to make. Obviously, you deal with decisions every day. But for me, after after seeing so many product professionals struggling with with them, I I just have two that would be at the top of the list.

One would be exactly what I spoke a bit earlier, deciding on a feature iteration, for example, when data and customer feedback are not aligned. So there are moments in in in the product world when data will say one thing, but the end-user feedback will say another thing. So your main sources of information contradict each other. And I think that's when the the value of a real product person is shown.

You you have these situations that are more often than than one would think, at least in the game world, and that's where you need to use your product and and pay attention to why the end user is giving you that feedback. I've seen, as I said earlier, a lot of product professionals ignore the feedback and only look at the data, and also the other way around. So I I believe it's wrong, because I think you need to see the the big picture.

And I'll give you a perfect example. Few years ago, in a in another company that that I I worked for, I've seen a very, very cool monetization feature being released that was meant to, you know, increase the engagement of the players and and kind of balance the effect of hangover post-sale. After a sale in a game, then you'll have few days when, you know, people won't buy, because they have enough you know, enough currency in their balance. So this feature was meant to to help the user engage more with the game after a sale and just balance the the economy in the game.

So the data was, after release, was showing amazing results. Like, we had increase in revenue after a sale, which was outstanding, but the players were giving horrible feedback, expressing extreme frustration with the feature. So what happened was that the feature itself was draining the players' balances, so it it was doing the the the, you know, it had the purpose and it was doing its Exactly. Exactly.

However, it was extremely tough to complete, so the players were burning the in-game currency at a very high rate and they were spending more money to achieve completion. So the data looked amazing as soon as we released it, but what was doing long-term was frustrating the players to the point of leaving the game. So that's something that just the data, just looking at the data, you would have said, "Okay, this is amazing." Like, I just I I So it's hard when you have to your two main sources of information contradicting each other, because which one do you believe? What do you do?

You have to, I guess, take a step back and and keep refining the the actual It's it's just the beginning in that in that, if you think that way. It's just the beginning of the new feature, and you just have to tweak it until you get the balance where you're not, you know, losing anything, and at the same time, your customers are happy and there's long-term future of the feature and the application secured as a result.

Yeah, you have to you have to iterate and you have to get specialists and look at everything that you have and and slowly tweak it until you see, you know, the the results. Obviously—

Happiness on both sides.

Exactly. Exactly.

And there's another another one, a second one. I think it's a it's it's a moment when you you need to take a difficult decision is, you know, when you have to decide the vision of a feature of a product that you don't usually use. You're not in the core target, you know? So what I'm saying I'm saying this because I had, and still have, intense debates with developers and then clients and management and when, you know, I was told, "I would never use this feature when I play the game. I would do XYZ." So, you know, then I I tell them, "Are you a player that plays this game every night, that spent thousands of dollars, and that, you know, is using the game to unwind after a long day?" And usually, the answer is no, because they're they're not spending money in the game, so they're not, you know, the the core the core target.

So I think it's hard to build something without understanding your user, and it's hard to build something that you wouldn't necessarily use. You know, you're building it for someone else. So then you have to decide, you know, which way to go. So I think that's that's another difficult point for a product.

Personal bias, yes. You have to You have to keep a distance between what you would like. I I mean, this is this is very common in the startup world, because I'll give you an example. So we interviewed a CEO of a company called I'll I'll just give you her name. So Ogochukwu, she started a business in Canada, and the business is basically responsible for managing returns from purchases that people are making in-store. So anyone who's bought something they don't like, they can they have fitted boxes in every building in I think in Montreal or Toronto, and they they pick up these, you know, they have got the system developed with the retailers, and they pick up these returns, and it's it's a seamless returns process and very convenient for the customer. So she developed it.

When we asked her, "Why did you develop this solution?", her answer was she once ordered some glasses from somewhere, and it took very long for her to get them, and it was very inconvenient. So she decided to solve that problem. But then she didn't just go and start started building a solution around it. She went she went and spoke with several customers. She did like focus groups, etc., etc. And then she found out that it was not actual, you know, the the problem in this process was not was not receiving the item, it was returning. That was the main thing.

So she changed her solution completely from receiving to returning, and that's the area she focused on. And she has a very successful company now.

That's a very good example, yeah, exactly.

Yeah, so you you put yourself in the shoes of a customer, not just think like, "Hey, I had this problem, so everyone has this problem, and let's do this," you know? So I completely agree there. But yeah, thanks for sharing that. That's a that's a great answer there.

I think it must make give you some sleepless nights, you know, when you have to convince the some of the other stakeholders who are the product. It's it must be challenging. And, how many How many times do you get things right? And how Is it 50/50, or you know?

It's also exciting.

You know, I think I think it's it's you you never really get it right. I think product is is not about getting it right. I think product is about putting something out and and iterating on it based on what feedback you get. I think you just you throw something at the wall and see if it sticks, and then try to patch it and try to make it, you know, this amazing piece of art that will just be on the on your wall.

I I don't I I can't say I got it right yet, because I'm still developing the product, you know? I you get it right with a few features here and there, and I think it's very exciting to see them develop and seeing the players engaging with them, and it feels like, you know, you're it gives you a bit of a God complex, you know, you're building things. But you never get it 100% right in product.

It's it's about managing expectations for everyone and keeping keep the things, you know, going on, moving forward on the other—

Yes. Iterating constantly. It's exactly what it is.

Yeah. Having a good process in place and and choice of technologies that you're not shackling yourself each time you develop something new, because then can you tweak it a little bit without breaking the whole thing? And that those are the questions, I think. So I completely understand.

So I want to ask you something about COVID, and I can I can understand a little bit that it might have had a positive impact on on on this industry. So I'd love to understand from you, how has COVID impacted BlueBat Games, and and what was done to adjust to this pandemic when it happened last year? And how's how how are things going now?

I do think you are right. The gaming industry has definitely impacted in a positive way the the COVID has impacted in a positive way the industry. You know, everyone was stuck at home with not much to do, so then everyone started playing games, especially for BlueBat when we're talking about casino players who were not able to go to casinos. So then they started just playing the the social game.

This is why you also I think we saw all the big game developers go public this year, because, you know, they had amazing numbers to to show off after a year of pandemic. You had like year-over-year minimum increases of 20, 30%. That's minimum. That's mediocre increases. And yeah—

That's like, "Okay, not acceptable. Below average."

Yeah, it's like, "Whatever. 50-plus, or we're not talking."

So for for us, the struggle was actually not the business itself, was how do we change the infrastructure that we have to support the new fully work-from-home model? Obviously, it wasn't like a huge challenge, because everyone has computers, you know, but it's it's still it still involved the the process of shipping computers, because not all the employees, especially, you know, developers and and designers, they can't work on a laptop. It's they need some very strong machines. Yes, they need some very strong machines. So we had to do that. We had to redefine the workflows, and it was it was a bit of a struggle.

How do you do that and maintain the communication? Because a lot of the decisions are taken, you know, in the in the hallways and just just talking to, you know, your your coworker at, you know, at lunch or something like that. And also, we we started working with people from around the world. So we're working now on different time zones, so that was also a challenge. Because, you know, it opened for us the the ability to search for talent in multiple places without, you know, it doesn't matter. The company's in Vancouver, but I can hire someone in Argentina or Uruguay or, you know. And it was very, very hard to to align the team and have it work very well when they don't really they didn't know each other that much. So that was the the struggle for us.

I see. For organizations that were not used to being totally remote, I think they are they are they're they're in a much better position a year or so later now. So and also, yeah, it did open new markets for people where they wouldn't go and hire people from other countries. Now it's like, "Hey, you know, what's the difference between John working, you know, in Toronto compared to John working in Brazil?" It's zero, because we still have our Zoom meetings and we just have to make sure we hire the right people. And it has made people, I think, even more conscious about who they are hiring, how are they going to fit, can they trust to be working while they are not being looked at or under the microscope? So I really find that this this has made recruiting a bit challenging, but at the same time, people are learning what their organization is all about, what the values are, and they're aligning those and they're aligning those values when they're hiring people now, and trying to learn what values these people have. And I really like the world we are in now.

I think COVID has its positive sides. I know a lot of us have lost our dear ones, you know, or loved ones as a result, but that's the other side of it, the horrible side. But overall, I think the businesses are improving and I like that a lot of people have are leaving their jobs now. I don't like it, but I'm just highlighting it that a lot of people are not working where they used to be. They've realized that, "Hey, you know, my friend, she works remote. She's working from home and she's she's treated so nicely, and I have to go to an office and being hounded by my manager all day that I can't even have a cup of coffee." So, you know, it gives options, yeah.

It gives options, yeah. It it gives you options. And it's not just that. It it challenges all these big companies that have as values trust, for example. It's like, how can you say you're trusting your employees when you're not willing to let them work from home, you know? It's like, why did you hire them? I I keep hearing this this debate over the "I don't think employees are as efficient at at home." It's like, you hired grown-ups, not kids! Like, what are you doing?

Before COVID, when I used to live in the UK, so I used to I used to have a job. It's funny that I'm I'm mentioning this. So I used to work in an office, and our office was small. If everyone is in, there's obviously not enough desks for people. So so all of us agreed that we will work one day away from the office, from home.

And there used to be so many issues, like, "Hey, why is this person doing two days from home because he has childcare issues?" And then our some of the managers would ask their staff like, "Hey, you worked from home, and you were not, you know, green on Microsoft Teams for half an hour. Explain me that." Instead of saying, "I gave you 10 10 jobs to do, and you did 11. Well done!" It's it's like crazy. Like, what what The wrong things to be looking at, I think, you know, these—

Yeah, I I had this It's it's very funny, because I had I had this debate when when I was managing a big office. I had this debate with some of the managers, because they were, you know, I for me, and and and my philosophy is I manage I, you know, you manage people. You don't manage tasks. So the people that you manage will have to fulfill the tasks that, you know, they have on their you give them, or they have, you know, from other other sources.

Now, if someone is that efficient that manages to do the eight-hour work in three hours, then they earned the five hours left, or—

You don't have to punish people for being efficient.

Yeah, exactly! Or you make sure that someone has, you know, enough tasks to fill the day without overwhelming them, because, you know, it's it's not like, "Okay, so if you can do this in three hours, I'm going to give you 20 of them." It's just, you know, it's just that it's it's and I I'm I'm baffled to see that a lot of managers think that, you know, people will just not work if you just Like, I I I do feel like if you hire someone, you start by trusting them right away. They don't have to earn your trust. Otherwise, don't hire them.

Yeah. And and, you know, eventually, if they fail, if you think what they're doing is wrong, then let them fail. Try and help them, and if they still fail But we shouldn't be so subjective and start challenging those things, you know, like, "Hey, you're away. Hey, what were you doing for five minutes? Why did you take an extra break or something?" You know, I just find it demoralizing and and it doesn't help me do my job better. So okay, anyhow, we got emotional there. I did. I did. I I feel strongly about that. I feel strongly about that. Okay. Yeah, let's go towards some personal questions now.

So could you describe your typical day or typical week, as they say nowadays? Because, you know, you you have like, "Okay, XYZ on Monday," and all that. So if there is such a thing.

You know, it's I think I have now a typical day just because I I have a toddler, so they're very in everything needs to happen at specific time, so then I have to have the same day every day for at least the next five years.

But I I try to I try to balance everything. I I've heard a lot of leaders and and managers and, you know, smart people talk about these amazing routines that they have, and they manage somehow magically to incorporate, you know, physical activity, and this reading, and it's like everything is so perfect. For me, I it's it's more of a like a normal person's schedule. I I wake up at 6:30, 7:00, because toddler, you know? And I I do try with my coffee to to just go over I'm I'm a big fan of Harvard Business Review, so I I I tend to go over older, new articles, and I have my Flipboard news just to just to stay up-to-date with with what's happening, and my product resources, if if any product report came out, I I need to read it.

Then, you know, I I like to go over the before I start my day, just go over the the prior-day numbers, like revenue, daily active users, just to see exactly how the day prior day, previous day went, and go over my emails. And I am a big fan of creating time boxes. So for me, every single day has time boxes. It's I go over emails and, "Okay, this is what I need to do for the day or for the week." So I just add in my calendar. This is the way I I make sure I stay focused, because I I tend to be a bit all over the place.

So I create my time boxes, and then, you know, at 9:00, I start my day. I do want to have and I do my best to have lunch every day with my family, just because we work from home and we have the kid. And then I, you know, meetings and everything that is is already planned in my time boxes. And at 5:00 for me, from 5:00 to 6:30 or 7:00, I pause work. That's time that I spend, you know, having dinner with the family, playing with my kid, just making sure that I have the mommy mommy time.

And then, you know, from from 7:00 to I would say 8:30, 9:00, if if there's more work to do, obviously, I go back to work, just because I work with other time zones, so I people are still working by the time I go to bed, so there's always something to do.

And then, you know, after I would say after 8:30, it's it's my time to relax, which is usually either play games or I just read something, I watch TV, it's just whatever it feels right for the for the day. And I make sure I go to bed maximum 11:00 at night. Stops.

Okay. Okay. That's fair enough. That's fair enough. So you play games, so are you a PS4 person or Xbox? Or none?

Actually, I'm none. I'm playing casual games. So I am I I love the the concept behind casual games, and I love the how how people get in in this mindset where you don't need to do much. You're just, you know, playing with a game and the way you interact with it that just stops your brain from freaking out, you know? You you just put pause to to everything, and you're you're able to spend half an hour, an hour just playing a game and not, you know, having this anxiety about what happened during the day or what's going to happen tomorrow.

So I I do play a lot of all the games that are coming out, big, small, all the games that are coming out in the in the casual games industry, I I've played them. I've seen them.

You have to keep yourself up to date, so there's no other way.

I also enjoy it a lot. I have to say, it's like, "Oh, look what they're doing this cool thing here!" And, you know, trying to investigate and seeing exactly how they did it.

Okay, fair enough. Well, yeah, okay, I had to ask you about games. I'm not I'm not a gaming person, to be honest. I used to be, but I think I burned I got burnt out completely when I was growing up. I used to play a lot of it. Like, the summer holidays were filled with video gaming, and and then—

Yeah, I've never gone through that phase, so yeah, I think that's why I still like it.

Like hours and hours of gaming, you know, I'll go through it.

No, no, I did not go through that.

Okay, lucky you. So yeah, I mean, I don't enjoy games on phone at the minute, and I had a PS4 and I used it twice in four years, so I decided like it needs to go. So I sold it last year, and I still have like four or five games that I need to get rid of, but I'll get to that one day.

For sure.

Yeah. Okay, great. So okay, moving on, what's one thing you wish you had known before you went into this gaming industry? Are there any Is there anything that you wish you had known? I should ask you that as well.

Yeah, I wish I would have known myself better. You know, I I wish I would have known that I will spend, you know, my entire career looking for the next challenge. I thought when I started that, you know, you find your path pretty soon and then continue on that path, and that's it. And you do actually, you do have people who do that. You know, they just specialize in just one thing, and that's their just that's what they love to do, and that's it.

Well, I I'm not like that, and you know, I instead I I I spent and continue to spend my my time constantly learning and always pushing myself and always feeling like I don't know enough, because I, to be honest, I don't, and you know, getting interested in all sorts of things and and discovering, you know, new new domains. I I started as a, you know, in customer service, and I did monetization, and I did QA, and now I ended up in product, you know?

Okay. Okay. I do find that some people are like when you ask them something, you know, you're you're let's say your family or some some somebody in your family like, "Hey, do you want to try this new thing, since you're not doing well where you are, you know, you don't like what you're doing?" And they're like, "No." Some people are very certain about what they want to do, and—

Yeah. I envy them. I absolutely envy them. I think it's it's amazing to know exactly what you want.

I don't, actually. I don't envy them. I I I am sorry for them, because they they're just kind of there could be so many possibilities for them, and they're they're ignoring them all. And I I—

I think it depends. I think it depends on Like, it's true, you know, you have you have people who just get stuck in in one place and and they they hate change, but you also have people who are very very much passionate about just one thing, like music, a specific instrument, or you have you have professors, you have doctors, you have scientists that are just they have one thing, and that's their only, you know, the their world.

You know, I think it's it's something that is I do admire, because I I get bored easily, so I keep changing things. For them, it's not like that.

Yeah, my my wife tells me that she she doesn't like to do anything for so long, and she wishes sometimes she could be like a bit like tunnel-visioned, that she does like something and she could carry on doing that for the rest of her life. And and I don't know, I'm just I'm just no one, so I would probably never find out. I I just I'm a selfish person, I just run after them, I think. Okay, anyhow. Okay. Right, we move from that.

How do you unwind? So we talked about the weekdays, like there is some some gaming stuff in the evening, which takes you away from work, so what do you do on weekends? Is there is there such thing as typical weekend that you go somewhere and, you know, spend some time somewhere outside, maybe?

I do I do love, you know, outside time. I I don't I'm not a camping person. I don't like going to, you know, camping. As I'm I I like fancy hotels and, you know, just traveling in a certain way. But I I do want and I I make sure that, you know, I go with with my husband and my kid to fun stuff, like, I don't know, some fruit picking or some yeah, we we do some cooking together or we go to splash pads and parks and just try to

We also moved my husband is Canadian, so we moved here right before the pandemic, so I didn't have the chance to discover really Canada.

Unexplored lands, I guess.

Exactly. So, you know, I'm I'm I'm really trying to to experience Canada and also make it fun for my kid, because, you know, it's it's pretty boring for him. Every day parents work, it's he's not yet in daycare, he will be soon, so it's it's something that the the three of us can definitely enjoy. It's just going out and enjoying non-technology-related time.

Okay. Okay, yeah, yeah. Change in, you know, scenery a little bit, appreciate that. Now you've you've already kind of touched upon the fact that in every morning you go through your Harvard publication, so let let's go a little bit deeper into that. So how do you keep on top of latest technology trends, especially product and technologies? What do you do to keep yourself up to speed? I think I know the answers already. Let's just put everything together now.

So for me, that's the thing. It's for me, product doesn't necessarily equal technology. I'm not, you know, I'm not a developer. I I read the news, obviously. I know what's happening with the major disruptors, such as Apple, Google, Facebook, whatever. But when it comes to latest technology innovations, I I have to say that I 100% rely on my team.

And, you know, I read the news and I follow the smart people in the industry, because I I don't know everything, as I said, and I I don't know enough, so it's I I have to rely on other people here. I know product, and I know what I want to do with the product that I'm I'm managing. I don't know how to get there, so I need to rely on everyone around me to take me there.

That's a fair thing. I mean, we can't do everything ourselves. We have to get help from the right people.

No, and I'm asking questions. You know, I'm going to read an article that I don't necessarily understand, and then I go, "I know a smart person who definitely will understand it, because they're specialist in, you know, I don't know, in some coding language or whatever," and they will explain it to me.

Are you part of some communities as a result that where you do like, you know, Quoras, and there's a lot of these Reddit and all those places where people are now having these conversations, not just, you know, personal or chattiness, but just about work as well, all those things?

I I can say that that I am part of of communities. I am part of the MBA community. I I finished my MBA and I'm I'm very much in touch with still with the professors, which are absolutely amazing and really helped me a lot. So I I do have my own community that I built, but I don't I don't really rely on on, you know, communities that formed on the internet. I I have my go-to people for every single every single subject.

Fair enough. I still I still use my professors for references, you know. 15 years on, I still ask them, "Hey, hey Tom, can you do this for me?" And he would he would reply two weeks later until, you know, I'm like, "Hey, it's already done. I've got the job now, it's fine." I did this six years ago with him. He he replied too late, you know? There you go.

But he replied!

Yeah, he replied. I was I was surprised that he remembered me, you know. Okay. All right. So Miruna, what continues to be the biggest challenge from a tech perspective, and how do you wish technology will would evolve to make your business or make your job more efficient?

Well, I've been struggling with with this for years in the gaming industry, and I think the biggest challenge for the the gaming world in general is to deal with disruptions and, you know, major changes made by the platforms that they rely on, you know?

Usually, these platforms, and I'm talking here about Facebook, Apple, Google, and, you know, and the rest, but they are the main ones, you know, do not consider how their changes will impact the developers. So I've experienced changes that Facebook made without announcing and just overnight, and you wake up the next day and nothing works, and you don't know why, because you didn't change anything, so it's just this constant battle.

And, you know, usually don't get enough notice regarding the change or, even if you do, it lacks the full, you know, documentation that you need in order to to understand the impact.

The most recent challenge was the the privacy change that Apple made that potentially killed an entire industry, which, by the way, I I agree with with the thinking and the, you know, the—

Customers to be able to choose if they want to share data or not.

Yes, I fully agree! Exactly. I fully agree with that, and I think that, for a long time, all these these big companies have exploited the data of of people without their knowledge. And I I just don't agree with the way it was done. I I think, you know, all the developers were desperate for more information, and there was this big wall that Apple put up and it they made it impossible to understand how things will work.

So I was talking to people in big companies, and I was like, "Okay, how are you going to deal with this?" And they were like, "I don't know. I'll just wait for it to come out, and I'll see exactly how, you know, it will affect the product," because they didn't know exactly how how that will happen.

So I just I I just wish that platforms and, you know, other companies that the entire industry is relying on will think things through more, and you know, just make sure that they have the resources to assist developers when when major changes are planned on their side. I think that's the biggest thing.

Obviously, you know, everyone is used to a specific technology deprecating, or, you know, that's fine. It's it's part of the it's part of and you usually have years to change, so it's not it's not something that happens all of the sudden. But when you rely when you're not self-sufficient and you rely a lot on these these platforms, then it makes your life like living hell.

I remember one or two of our friends, they I mean, they had to pivot the whole product as a result, because one of these was a business that was collecting data on daily basis from 15 million devices and providing a solution to marketing, you know, to marketing departments of big organizations, and all of a sudden, with this change, they have no data now anymore to enrich customers' data. I mean, the solution is good, but it's only as good as the insights you provide them. So they had to pivot and they're still picking up the pieces, and it's been a it's been a big one. So I I heard that there's only 18% people who said yes after the change was made to the Apple—

I think it depends on on the the type of game, on the niche. There are certain type of games that have up to 30% opt-in rate, which is definitely nice. It's still little, 30% is nothing, but it's I I also think that you had some a very nice trend. So Apple made it actually very ugly. The the prompt is like, "We're going to get your soul, and you're going to sell your house," and this is—

I always say no to it, just so you know! I always choose the option not to track my data. That's how I do it, because it pops up all the apps, because, you know, you have like 20, 30 apps in your phone. You're not using them all the time. So the ones I've opened recently, they come with this, "No, thank you. No, no, no, no, no." And I'm saying no to everything.

Well—

Because I'm not educated on this. Like, nobody has told me how my data will be used. I just have this impression that these companies are evil and they will use my data and sell me things I don't need.

And and some are. Listen, we need to be honest. It's we've seen we've witnessed some pretty bad cases of, you know, data usage that were pretty scary. We we had especially, you know, especially in US recently, you had some very big it was a very big case there.

But it's I saw some especially the games are are now they they they do it better. So before they prompt you with that ugly, scary warning from Apple, they tell you why they need it, you know? Some of the games do it, and and and with those games, you definitely see a higher rate of opt-in. It's still not where it should be.

And to be honest, they you know, they still collect data. They just cannot really retarget you. That's that's all. Like, you still with technology, I think it's a price we pay. I I do not—

Or they they anonymize it and somehow still utilize it, just that they wouldn't come back to you and try and hound you based on what they know about you.

Yes. Exactly. Exactly. It's what happened, for example, with, you know, the the big subject of GDPR in in Europe, when, you know, all the companies had to give the right to be forgotten and ability to everything. And it meant nothing.

People found their way around it, though.

Yeah, it's it meant absolutely nothing, because it's part—

We wouldn't be speaking if it was not for the GDPR.

Yeah, so you see?

You know, the email I sent you, so— So yeah. Right. Okay, great. So I'm conscious of the time. We've got five minutes left, so I'm going to ask you a very short question now. So, you know, I'm sure there are, you know, more than three attributes of top leaders today, but what would you what would be the top three, according to you? Top three attributes of a top leader.

Actually, it's it's coincidentally, I've been thinking a lot about this. I'm working with one of my MBA professors on a on a management game, and I I've been doing a lot of reading, because there are so many opinions about what a leader should be in the in the current times.

I think the role of leaders has dramatically changed in the past few years. For me personally, it's a very long list of attributes that someone needs to have in order to be like a true leader. And I'm talking here like a good leader. I'm not talking about, you know, a psychopath that just manages to to lead.

But I I think the top three would be, one, they they need to be enablers of of innovation, even if that means making mistakes. As long as we're talking about smart mistakes, you're you're doing something new, so maintaining the status quo is not something that a leader should should do, in my opinion.

A second one, and it's something that I don't see enough, would be a big focus on developing and mentoring others. I don't think leaders realize that they need to also be mentors, because you can't do everything, and you need a good leader is able to take like a month vacation and the company will not fall, you know? So that is done through through developing and mentoring others.

And I would say that they need to be promoters of ethics and integrity. It's something that keeps falling further and further like at the bottom of the list recently, and I think it should be higher up, because I think we're we're lacking a lot of it.

Yeah, and I think the third point, I mean, these are all great points, but the third point especially, if the leaders are not following on what they are promising or saying what the organization stands for, I think nobody I think this is kind of a recipe of an organization that's on the way to going down, because then your people are not serious about what they're doing, and yeah, you you feel, you know, ultimately things will fall apart. So yeah, I appreciate that answer. I think those three are absolutely important values. We are making a huge list of these three attributes, by the way. I'm sure by now we have like 50 of these attributes collected, and I think if you condense them all 50 together, I think there's only going to be five or six that because they're all in one way or another similar to each other.

And with that, Miruna, I want to thank you for taking part in our podcast today. I really enjoyed talking to you. I hope you didn't feel like it was an interrogation. We had a I think we had a lovely conversation.

It was amazing. Thank you so much for for having me. It was really, really great talking to you, and not as scary as I thought.

Yeah.

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