Doubt is the greatest killer of success, and I think everyone needs a little reminder of that sometimes.
Huxley Harris is the founder of Smart Pokies. With a deep understanding of the challenges faced by Australian gamblers, Harris is dedicated to providing valuable insights and information to help players make smarter decisions in the realm of online casinos and pokies.
Through his website, Smart Pokies, Harris and his team offer up-to-date and relevant knowledge on slot games, online casinos, and game providers, ensuring a safe and enjoyable gaming experience.
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Table of Contents
We are thrilled to have you join us today; welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a brief introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Harris Huxley: I’m Harris Huxley, the founder of Smart Pokies. I keep myself updated with the biggest issues, current events, and anything else that I believe is relevant. And when it comes to gambling, the average person here suffers the biggest losses compared to anyone else from literally any other country. That’s why a lot of offshore sites target Australian players. They see an opportunity to profit, and that’s all good; but this also increases their exposure to scams, fraud, and unfair operators.
So, through Smart Pokies, I’m helping players in the country make smarter decisions related to pokies, online casinos, and gambling in general. My team and I have up-to-date and relevant information on slot games, online casinos, game providers, or anything else that will help make the gaming experience fun and safe.
If you were in an elevator with Warren Buffet, how would you describe your company, your services, or your products? What makes your company different from others? What is your company’s biggest strength?
Harris Huxley: Well, I’d first thank him for making the principle of value investing popular. Many investors just go with trends to get a quick buck, but I don’t think that’s sustainable in the long run.
So, I’d try to frame Smart Pokies around this principle: a budding website with fewer than four years on the market but a lot of potentials. We are a pokies information site designed to help Australian players widen their knowledge of the online casino terrain so they can make the best information-backed decision for themselves. This helps them avoid unsatisfactory gaming experiences and, more importantly, scams.
What separates us from the rest is that we don’t compromise the truth. Even though we maintain profitability through affiliate commissions, we don’t recommend any pokie or online casino that we don’t believe in. That trust is what will help our site keep growing and, perhaps in a few years, even expand into other countries.
What advice do you wish you had received when you started out on your business journey, and what do you intend to improve in the next quarter?
Harris Huxley: If you didn’t know already, I founded Smart Pokies in 2020. But the truth is, I’ve been wanting to create it for years already. So, if there’s anything I’d tell my past self, it’d be to just go for it. I feel like I’m always trying to chase perfection – which is a good thing, especially because the trust of Australian players is at stake. But that shouldn’t stop anyone from getting their idea off the ground.
For the next quarter, we’re looking to cover even more pokies in our reviews and perhaps even discover new and upcoming game developers with a lot of talent so our readers can benefit from their products as well.
Here is a two-fold question: What is the book that influenced you the most, and how? Please share some life lessons you learned. Then, which book have you gifted the most and why?
Harris Huxley: Oh. It’s definitely The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*** by Mark Manson. At its core, the book is all about rechanneling our energy and attention to things that matter and that we can control. Anything outside that is just noise. I feel like with everything going on, this has helped me recalibrate myself to set my actions only to things that are important to me: my family, my friends, and of course, Smart Pokies.
For example, despite all our research before publishing new reviews or site features, the only sure way to know how the audience is going to receive it is to put our work out there. So instead of worrying about a future event that may not even happen, we focus on controlling as much as we can to ensure everything we release is received positively.
That’s why this is also the book I’ve gifted my friends the most. Doubt is the greatest killer of success, and I think everyone needs a little reminder of that sometimes.
Christopher Hitchens, an American journalist, is quoted as saying that “everyone has a book in them” Have you written a book? If so, please share details with us about it. If you haven’t, what book would you like to write, and how would you like it to benefit the readers?
Harris Huxley: I am currently cooking up an idea related to the gambling industry in the country. I’m not yet ready to share more details about it, but it will definitely help people to become better gamblers and enjoy online casinos even more without falling into addiction.
In your experience, what tends to be the most underestimated part of running a company? Can you share an example?
Harris Huxley: The biggest challenge for me so far was passing the torch. Any founder or entrepreneur knows this feeling, I believe. Smart Pokies is my brainchild, so there was a time when it was hard for me to delegate tasks. But I know that if I want it to reach its full potential, I have to be able to trust that other people do their work well… just as readers trust the info on Smart Pokies.
That’s why I’m so thankful that I have a great team that works just as hard as I do to achieve even greater success for my company.
On a lighter note, if you had the ability to pick any business superpower, what would it be, and how would you put it into practice?
Harris Huxley: It’d definitely be the ability to read the minds of the target market of Smart Pokies. I envisioned my company as a helpful source of information for anyone interested in pokies and online casinos. But here’s what a lot of our competitors get wrong: success as an information source in the industry isn’t about providing an endless dribble of information. It’s about helping readers with their pokies-related problems and concerns as well as dealing with their queries and curiosities.
And by being able to read their minds, we could more effectively deliver the info that matters to them. If an information site doesn’t fulfil the purpose of helping the reader, then it’s nothing but a repository of facts. That’s the opposite of what Smart Pokies is all about.
Jerome Knyszewski, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Harris Huxley for taking the time to do this interview and share his knowledge and experience with our readers.
Disclaimer: The ValiantCEO Community welcomes voices from many spheres on our open platform. We publish pieces as written by outside contributors with a wide range of opinions, which don’t necessarily reflect our own. Community stories are not commissioned by our editorial team and must meet our guidelines prior to being published.
