Whenever we build a new product, we want to know what our competitors are cooking. But how do you separate actual market signals from the noise?

In this episode of Months and Millions, host Alex Babko sits down with Alex Nenadavets, a Certified Competitive Intelligence Professional who leads Market & Competitive Intelligence at SciPlay (and previously spent nearly a decade at Wargaming). We demystify the "black magic" behind competitive intelligence, proving it’s less about corporate espionage and more about building data-driven instincts for C-level executives.

Alex Nenadavets shares practical frameworks for evaluating new markets and explains why treating disruption as an opportunity early on is the only way to survive.

Key Topics Covered:

 * Busting CI Myths: What competitive intelligence actually is (and isn't) and why it must be a company-wide process.
 * Red vs. Blue Oceans: How to use top-down and bottom-up approaches to evaluate market sizes for new products.
 * Filtering the Noise: How to read between the lines of public announcements and refine third-party data.
 * The Innovator's Dilemma: Why companies like Kodak fail despite having the right intelligence, and how to structure your R&D teams to prevent internal cannibalization.
 * AI in Analytics: Why AI won't replace analysts, but analysts who use AI will replace those who don't.

Connect with the Guest:

 * Alex Nenadavets on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nenadavets/

Listen & Subscribe: If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to Months and Millions and leave us a review! 

Host: Alex Babko | https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexanderbabko/

The Black Magic of Competitive Intelligence: Avoiding the Kodak Trap with Alex Nenadavets

Stephan Bugaj, Emmy-winning creator, ex-Pixar Technical Director and currently Chief Creative Officer at Genvid. Stephan worked with Amazon, Paramount, Fox, Warner Bros., Sony, and many others creating transmedia projects spanning feature films, television, video games, interactive and virtual reality experiences.

Now Stephan creates interactive film experiences like Silent Hill Ascension and DC Heroes United where community impacts how the movie plot develops based on social interactions like voting, meta play and other interactive tools. Recently Stephan and production teams received Emmy in Emerging Media category for their work on Silent Hill Ascension and currently they are working on a new interactive series DC Heroes United.

In this podcast episode we talk about future of social interaction, role of AI in personalised content, about interactions with robots and how such interactive and futuristic experiences are created.

Part 1: About Silent Hill Ascension, EMMY award for Emerging Media and future of social interactions

Part 2: Traps of hyper-personalised content and role of AI

Part 3: Design for Emotional connect with audience

Part 4: Sophia Robot and AGI: when we will get Westworld experience in real life

Part 5: What’s next?

DC Heroes United: https://dcheroesunited.com

Genvid: https://genvid.com

Stephan Bugaj: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bugaj/

Alex Babko: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexanderbabko/

This is a personal podcast. The views and opinions expressed here are only those of the author and do not represent those of any organization or any individual with whom the author may be associated, professionally or personally.

Future of Social Interactions: Stephan Bugaj | Chief Creative at Genvid | ex-Pixar | Sophia Robot Co-Creator

My guest is Kiryl Drazdovich, a video expert with more than 20 years of experience in computer graphics, animation, video production and R&D. Kiryl spent significant part of his career leading technical video production teams at Wargaming and most recently founded his own studio Mroya that creates outstanding video content for global brands.

The main idea that Kiryl stands for with R&D is that creators should struggle with generating emotions and not with production tools that should be smooth and convenient.

Together with Kiryl back at Wargaming Special Projects we experimented a lot at an intersection of emerging tech, gaming and video production. It resulted in multiple award-winning projects including immersive, spatial computing, 360-degree documentaries, live event and virtual production studios and many other exciting R&D explorations.

In this episode we discuss how AI and Unreal Engine 5 advancements help to automate production pipelines, what it is like to work with celebrities like The Offspring, Dolph Lundgren, Gianluigi Buffon and Arnold Schwarzenegger, we talk about lessons learnt from creating immersive video storytelling and of course envision what’s next.

This is a personal podcast. The views and opinions expressed here are only those of the author and do not represent those of any organization or any individual with whom the author may be associated, professionally or personally.

Kiryl Drazdovich: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kiryldrazdovich 

Alex Babko: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexanderbabko 

How R&D Works in Video Production: Kiryl Drazdovich

Mira Care is a California-based start-up that created a home-use medical device for hormone tracking. More than 100,000 women around the globe use it on daily basis to monitor their health and fertility.

This episode covers conversation about an innovative smart product that managed to evolve from an early R&D stage to becoming a successful solution that helps thousands of women around the world to monitor fertility. Mira Care is a fertility startup that designed and engineered an at-home hormone ab with user-friendly smart devices and reliable AI services. It’s a miniature egg-shaped device that uses sensors, camera and machine learning tools to track your hormones in a very precise and convenient manner. It is based on urine test that you can do with a special cup and a wand that women place in the device to get hormone test results on their smartphone app in a few moments.

In this episode we discuss with Katherine how to bring a new consumer and medical device to market where such category did not exist, how to establish a proper collaboration between R&D, Marketing, Customer Experience, Manufacturing and other teams and how to integrate user feedback into pipeline of innovation.

We discuss what matters for consumers, if they care about emerging tech like IoT, AI, Computer Vision or simply want the device to work reliably. Katherine also shares her perspective on access to medical data and we discuss if it’s a source of stress and anxiety or a path to build health confidence.

In this episode we also discuss recent statement from Scott Galloway who predicted death of CMO as a profession by February 2025 and uncover how Katherine plans to survive in the profession.

In the final chapter Katherine shares valuable insights from startups that she mentors in Bay area and tries to predict what’s next.

00:00:00 – 00:02:00: Topic and Guest intro

00:02:00 – 00:08:00: How Mira Care helps to monitor fertility

00:08:00 – 00:16:00: Why it took healthcare industry 50+ years to adopt innovation in fertility monitoring?

00:16:00 – 00:22:00: Challenges of hardware product development and marketing

00:22:00 – 00:27:00: Do users care about emerging tech?

00:27:00 – 00:31:00: Pipeline of product innovation and setup of R&D team

00:31:00 – 00:38:00: Challenges of a home-based diagnostics

00:38:00 – 00:43:00: Role of marketing in product development

00:43:00 – 00:45:00: Practice of using AI in product development

00:45:00 – 00:52:00: Mentoring next-gen healthcare startups

00:52:00 – 00:55:00: What’s next?

Please, enjoy the conversation, subscribe and rate the show!

This is a personal podcast. The views and opinions expressed here are only those of the author and do not represent those of any organization or any individual with whom the author may be associated, professionally or personally.

How Emerging Tech Revolutionized Fertility Tracking: Katherine Sakovich | CMO of Mira Care

Georgii is a world-class inventor, author of more than 30 patents, PhD in laser physics and helps companies to make successful innovation predictable and within deadlines.

With over 25 years of experience in development of new products, services and technologies he worked for Pepsi, Mars, Siemens, Novartis, Medtronic and many other world's leading companies. His key to success is innovative problem solving.

The conversation is full of practical and insightful examples from Georgii’s experience where he shares his approach to making innovation real. We also discuss how innovation process changes in AI era, what tools and methodologies help from our personal experience and if it is possible to capture a lightning in a bottle again and again.

Check this episode to learn about innovation projects from Funeral Insurance Company, Breakthrough Medical Devices, consumer electronics, oil and gas and many other industries. Pay special attention to the final chapter of the episode where Georgii, as an innovator, shares what he anticipates as the next step of innovation.

This is a personal podcast. The views and opinions expressed here are only those of the author and do not represent those of any organization or any individual with whom the author may be associated, professionally or personally.

Innovation for a Funeral Company and Many Others: Georgii Martsinovskii

Nadia Deshkovets is a TED-speaker, ex-VP and CMO at Carlsberg and now is a certified executive business coach. Nadia started her professional journey as a marketing manager in Belarus in early 90ths and grew her career all the way to Vice President of Marketing at Carlsberg in Vietnam, while remaining active, enthusiastic and empathetic leader. For the last 7 years Nadia also helps global business leaders as an executive coach and business trainer.

In this episode we talk about curiosity as one of the key ingredients for successful innovators, entrepreneurs and executive leaders. We discuss how to nurture growth mindset, overcome rigidity and find the keys to make innovation possible, long term and meaningful.

Since Nadia is a certified executive coach, we discussed, how her clients come to an idea that they need help, what makes a good coach, discuss ups and downs and how Nadia builds an AI Companion to scale her coaching services.

We also discuss specifics of doing business in Vietnam, compare with other geographies and – as both of us are expats – talk about benefits and challenges of living and working in another country.

Our conversation also covers topics of incremental vs disruptive innovation, we discuss practical case studies of product innovation in consumer goods segment and how to build a proper business portfolio toward high-momentum segments. Please, pay attention to the segment where Nadia highlights:

“Meaningful longterm innovation is always disruptive and is based on customer insights”.

“Failure is one of the most important things for innovators and entrepreneurs”.

“Smooth sea never trained a skilled sailor”.

https://nadiadeshkovets.com [https://nadiadeshkovets.com/]
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nadia-deshkovets https://www.facebook.com/nadya.deshkovets
https://www.instagram.com/nadyadeshcoach

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexanderbabko

Please, enjoy our conversation, subscribe, rate the show and share your thoughts with us at monthsandmillions@gmail.com!

This is a personal podcast. The views and opinions expressed here are only those of the author and do not represent those of any organization or any individual with whom the author may be associated, professionally or personally.

How Ex-VP Can Stay Curious and Innovative: Nadia Deshkovets

Victor Madueño is an award-winning business and innovation consultant who helps companies bridge their digital gaps through creative thinking, strategic frameworks and measurable outcomes. For the last 10 years Victor lives and works in Dubai and witnesses the development leaps in the Gulf Region that enable huge growth, reasonably unlimited opportunities and giga-projects like NEOM and Expo 2020 Dubai amidst the pandemic.

In this episode we talk about what is digital transformation in clear and digestible terms, why many companies fail doing it and why others succeed. We delve into practical cases, including the project where Victor and his team develop a next-gen loyalty experience for ultra-reach segment of people to replicate real world experience and attitude in digital realms.

In this episode we also delve into one of the recent projects that we worked on together, creating a phygital experience for kids that explains who an engineer of the future is – a Digital Transformer – and what skills are required for kids of today to become successful in future.

We also discuss benefits and limitations of working at a startup vs big corporation, how to balance multiple hats of thinker, doer and enabler under one role and where to source creativity.

Victor knows Gulf Region very well and we dedicate a part of the conversation trying to uncover secret ingredients of success in UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and other countries, and coming to very interesting conclusions.

Victor Madueño: https://www.linkedin.com/in/victormadueno/

Alex Babko: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexanderbabko

Please, enjoy our conversation, subscribe, rate the show and share your thoughts with us at monthsandmillions@gmail.com!

This is a personal podcast. The views and opinions expressed here are only those of the author and do not represent those of any organization or any individual with whom the author may be associated, professionally or personally.

Why Middle East is the Frontier of Innovation: Victor Madueño

David Nussbaum is an inventor of holoportation technology, a CEO and founder of a company called Proto. He built a solution that beams people from all over the world to phone-booth-size boxes as holograms. The teleportation (to certain extent) is no longer a science fiction and I tested it myself at SXSW in 2022 in Austin, Texas. This is by far one of the most prominent and breakthrough technologies in the field of next-gen communication and telepresence.

In this episode we discuss how David came to an idea of broadcasting people and made teleportation real, we talk about challenges of developing a physical product and building a team that could have worked in NASA, but chose Proto. We also envision when our avatars will be attending meetings and events instead of us and in a very practical manner make an overview of key lessons learnt while developing a sci-fi technology on the edge of digital and physical realms.

We also talk about the journey from being a podcast host and a salesperson to becoming a sci-fi inventor and how each step in the career counts towards building a successful product. I personally very much admire the part where David tells a very personal story about his pitch to an angel investor when everything went upside-down.

This episode also features a master-class on pitching an idea of a business around passion, future and wonder. And of course, we discuss how many months and millions it takes to build an innovation company and try to envision what’s coming next.

Please, enjoy our conversation, subscribe, rate the show and share your thoughts with us at monthsandmillions@gmail.com!

David Nussbaum: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dnussbaum [https://www.linkedin.com/in/dnussbaum/]

PROTO: https://protohologram.com [https://protohologram.com/]

Alex Babko: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexanderbabko/

This is a personal podcast. The views and opinions expressed here are only those of the author and do not represent those of any organization or any individual with whom the author may be associated, professionally or personally.

He Invented Teleportation: David Nussbaum | CEO of Proto

Al King is a top-notch marketing professional who built rock solid brands for EA Games, 20th Century Fox and Wargaming. Al is a true marketing rockstar of video games, online and home entertainment, he stands behind the award-winning approach to understanding players aspirations and motives and helps game developers and online practitioners create compelling experiences and games that win players hearts without breaking a budget. I personally worked with Al at Wargaming for more than 6 years and together we collaborated on many global events, celebrated 100 Years of Tanks with real WW1 and AR tanks on Trafalgar square, helped win Golden Joysticks for World of Tanks and did a lot of high-level branding campaigns.

In this conversation Al shares plenty of interesting stories: how Electronics Arts agreed to publish a doomed from the start game to secure a contract with Shaquille O'Neal, how Al identified very niche and practically unnoticed audience for The Sims which resulted in massive overperformance; how he helped Wargaming leadership to build a proper brand instead of a logo and many others.

We also talk about differences between old-school marketing by the book vs digital marketing and AI-enabled marketing and how archaeology and ergonomics are linked to marketing, coming to very interesting conclusions.

We also talk about role of music in video games and how to build a video game brand that Iron Maiden lead singer would volunteer to become your brand ambassador. As a bonus the last part of the conversation features a live demo jam performance by Al with ad-hoc created music band “Serpentine Sibilance“.

Al King: https://www.linkedin.com/in/awking

Please, enjoy our conversation, subscribe, rate the show and share your thoughts with us at monthsandmillions@gmail.com!

Alex Babko: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexanderbabko/

This is a personal podcast. The views and opinions expressed here are only those of the author and do not represent those of any organization or any individual with whom the author may be associated, professionally or personally.

He Builds Marketing as a Brand Dictator: Al King

My guest is Ryan Douglas, co-founder and CEO of DeepWell Digital Therapeutics. Ryan is a therapy designer, previously – a top executive and board member in several med-tech companies, deeply experienced in creation of smart medical devices, neurosurgical robotics. Now with his team he creates an industry of immersive medicine, developing games and mechanics that help people treat mental health issues. Ryan believes such games need to be available both over the counter for self-assessment and can be recommended by your doctor as part of immersive medicine concept.

Find out about Deepwell DTx: https://www.linkedin.com/company/deepwelldtx/

Ryan Douglass: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanjdouglas/

Check the first Deepwell DTx game on Meta Quest – Zengence: https://www.deepwelldtx.com/zengence

Please, enjoy our conversation, subscribe, rate the show and share your thoughts with us at monthsandmillions@gmail.com!

Alex Babko: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexanderbabko/

This is a personal podcast. The views and opinions expressed here are only those of the author and do not represent those of any organization or any individual with whom the author may be associated, professionally or personally.

How Playing Games Improves Health: Ryan Douglas

Months and Millions is a new show about big bold ideas and people who make them real with help of emerging technologies. Alex Babko, as an Innovation and Program Management Director talks to practitioners and innovators to discuss real projects, lessons learnt from experience, human and business sides of innovation, how to invest months into making millions and to figure out what's next. 

Alex Babko

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