Roman Shimanskiy, CEO of Yango Play: Each week, My Morning Routine looks at how a successful member of the community starts their day — and then throws in a couple of random business questions just for fun. Speaking to us this week is Roman Shimanskiy (LinkedIn), CEO of Yango Play. Edited excerpts from our conversation:

My name is Roman Shimanskiy. I'm the Chief Executive of Yango Play. We’re an AI-powered superapp in the Middle East region which brings different types of entertainment into one single application, from movies and series to music and mini games. We’re part of Yango Group, which is a UAE-headquartered global tech company that covers everything from direct technology services up to robotics and all its different B2C and B2B applications.

Despite the fact that we're a global company, our key success factor is that we're extremely [localized]. We do not operate in the same way or offer the same content for all the countries in the MENA region where we operate; we tailor our content to every single country.

At Yango Play, in particular, we’re very focused on Arabic-speaking content, as the Gulf and Egypt make up our primary audience. It’s a cornerstone of the culture here, and so there was no debate over Arabic-speaking shows and content being our priority. We produce original Arabic content through Yango Originals and also bring the best shows already out there to our platform.

We still include global content, but we find that local stories are the best way to connect with viewers. We’re also investing in content production to keep bringing high quality content to our platform and further develop the industry for Arabic content.

Although the video streaming industry has lots of players, there isn’t any competition in terms of having the range of entertainment types that we have on our platform. We also have our AI-powered smart speaker Yasmina, that is fully integrated with the Yango Play app itself.

We don’t limit ourselves to a single category because the borders between different types of entertainment are being erased. We try to focus on tapping into the flow between different types of content. The amount of time that people will spend consuming content is only going up, and so for us it’s all about providing enough good quality content to make this time well spent.

The industry itself has changed a lot recently. In the first episode of a show, you need to engage people within the first five minutes and grab their attention or they will stop watching. It’s very different from traditional TV, or even movies and cinema. We’re seeing less restrictions and expectations when it comes to what customers expect from streaming, and more of a blend between content that used to be more typical of YouTube or social media.

It all boils down to the ability to engage someone in a story and now you have a very short time to capture peoples’ attention, especially as attention spans are becoming more fragmented.

I’m not naturally a morning person, but one thing I do love is numbers and I’m a bit obsessed with checking viewership and subscriber numbers for Yango Play from the day before first thing in the morning. It’s great to see how people are reacting to our work, especially when we launch something new. We have five main dashboards and I love to dive into this ocean of data straight away — it’s almost a form of meditation. I’ll look until I stumble upon something that catches my eye and then I start to brainstorm from there.

I read EnterpriseAM through its emailed newsletter as for me email is a more focused form of communication. There aren’t as many distractions like ads as in other mediums.

I’m definitely an office person as it helps keep that space and boundary between home and work. Commuting home for me is almost like when divers are coming back to the surface — it’s a gradual period of decompression that helps me make the switch into home mode.

My day is normally shaped around back to back meetings throughout the day. Sometimes it’s only by 7pm that I can finally get to focus on my own work. Organization-wise, I keep a to-do list, which gives me a certain satisfaction when I tick off the things I’ve achieved that day, and I also book everything into my calendar to try and keep control over my time.

During my time off I try to do the opposite and avoid having too much of a set schedule to really help myself switch off and avoid this sense of having an inner timer in your head.

About a year ago I started going for at least a couple of walks a day, and I even started doing walking meetings. It helps get the blood flowing to your brain — hence with creativity — a lot more than sitting inside all day. Other people are generally onboard and like the change of scenery, but convincing them to have a walking meeting in the summer in Dubai is trickier.

On a personal level, I recently got some smart devices that track your health because that’s a priority for me right now. Professionally, we really see ourselves being number one in the industry in a few years, given we’re part of a huge global tech company and how agile we are in terms of building new products and features.

Switching off my notifications helps my work-life balance since it silences those triggers, especially when your phone is like a second workplace. I actually also use Yango Play to switch off often and am very lucky as I can watch our own original series before everyone else. I would really recommend a series we’ve recently released called Roses and Chocolates, which is inspired by true stories. It’s really good — so much so that I’ve been messaging the producers asking them to send me the next episode straight away.

A piece of advice that stuck with me was from a podcast which spoke about the power of the word ‘thank you’, and the different ways to show appreciation for what someone has done. Sometimes these simpler signs of appreciation are more powerful than any numbers or scores, and can really motivate people.

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