IAM1030- Founder Runs Publisher to Guide People in Their Careers

Chris is the founder of WikiJob.co.uk, a popular UK publisher that serves 1m monthly visitors and has 7-figure revenue. WikiJob has grown to be the leading destination for people planning their next career move and offers interview tips, preparation packs, and more.

• CEO Hack: Having clearly defined goals
• CEO Nugget: Focus
• CEO Defined: The captain of the ship and a people/strategy job

Website: https://www.wikijob.co.uk/

https://chriscentral.com

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Transcription

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00:35 – Gresham Harkless

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gretch values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I am CEO podcast.

01:02- Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Chris Mukhtar of WikiJob. Chris, it's awesome to have you on the show.

01:11- Chris Muktar

Hey. Thanks for having me.

01:13 – Gresham Harkless

Definitely super excited to have you on. And what I want to do before we jump into the interview is read a little bit more about Chris so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. Chris is the founder of wiki job dot co dot uk, a popular UK publisher that serves one million monthly visitors and has seven figures in revenue. More. Chris, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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01:42 – Chris Muktar

Yeah. Absolutely. Let's do it.

01:44 – Gresham Harkless

Let's do it. So to kinda kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit and hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story. We'll let you get started with all the awesome work you're doing.

01:53 – Chris Muktar

Sure. Yeah. So it all started, back in two thousand seven. I'd I'd finished university and, and was looking for a job. And in the UK, you have all these big companies that advertise these graduate schemes, for for hiring inexperienced people out of uni. And, I had joined one of these schemes at a big accounting firm, and and I hated it. And I hated it. I thought I'd been misspelled. And what's more, a lot of other people who were there felt the same way. So, they always seduce you with the idea of, lots of opportunities. And then you get there, and then you realize that work is tough, and it's long hours and poor pay.

And so a friend and I, decided that we would create a website really just as a hobby, to try to expose the truth behind what it was like to work for these big companies and to get people to contribute anonymously, and build up profiles. And, it kinda built from there. So for a couple of years, we just ran it as a side hustle. And we found after a couple of years, the website began to get pretty popular. We were doing a couple of hundred thousand visits a month. And, back in two thousand seven, two thousand eight, it was pretty expensive to host a website, like that.

And, so we were paying for it out of our pockets. And then after a couple of years, we thought, why don't we try and turn it into a business? And, we started to ring around, to see if we could get advertisers. And the first advertiser we phoned spent ten grand. So we thought, okay. Well, this is this is pretty good, and and tried to build out from there. It wasn't so easy after that. Like, we got really lucky the first time, but it was that little win at the slot machine that kinda got us coming back.

03:54- Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely appreciate that. And I always feel like those are really big signs, to kinda keep moving a year in the right spot right space. Because if you hadn't got that quick win, sometimes you might have not, you know, stayed on longer if it took as long in the beginning. So I love those things that kinda make sure and remind you that you're in alignment.

04:12- Chris Muktar

That's right.

04:14 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. So I  know I touched on a little bit more about, you know, the site and all the awesome things you're doing. Could you take us through a little bit more on what exactly we could find there and how exactly it helps the people that come there?

04:25 – Chris Muktar

Sure. Yeah. So WikiJob is a is a is a publisher. So, you have, and WebMD, for example, for healthcare stuff. So, you know, if you've got a headache, you can find, lots of stuff about that on WebMD. WikiJob aims to be the same thing for jobs and careers, basically. So, you know, if you, don't know how to answer questions and interview you or if you wanna know what really business casual looks like or if you wanna see if you can get the perfect setup for working from home, WikiJob dot co dot u k is is there to provide content for that. And the way we work fundamentally, we try and figure out what people wanna know and what people are searching for, and we write content around that.

The website is monetized through advertising. So, you know, some of those contain affiliate links. Some of those articles contain ads. And, you know, that business model is as old as time. So it's very straightforward in that respect. I think what separates us is the quality and the depth. So, there are other websites that do what we do. We really aim to be, the leader in this space, though. So our articles are typically four to six times longer than those of our nearest competitor. We try to make sure we go really in-depth with everything.

05:47- Gresham Harkless

Nice. I  definitely appreciate that. And, a lot of times, you know, being able to go deep you know, what's the quote? You know, go the extra mile because it's never crowded because no one goes the extra mile. You being able to kinda bounce that from a content standpoint of saying, where do you wanna go deeper? We're gonna provide more value. That's how and what we showcase, you know, as our secret sauce and what kinda sets us apart. But I love that, you know, you kind of gave that example of how you, for lack of a better term, reverse engineer, the things that people are searching for, and then you find that, create that content, and do it in a long-form way so that people can get the value that they're hoping to get, you know, throughout the, the site.

06:23 – Chris Muktar

That's right.

06:24 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. Nice. Nice. And was there anything else you would consider to be, like, your secret sauce, the things you feel kinda sets you apart, either that personally or the business that kinda sets with the job apart?

06:33 – Chris Muktar

I think I think the key thing is is is what you said is willing to go further than others are willing to go. And I think that's that's important because you really wanna you really wanna produce something that stands out from the the crowd. There's no point doing something that's just as good as everybody else is. Like, you really do have to go a lot further. For us, publishing is a tight profit-margin business. Right? Like, you know, it costs money to produce content. And we've been lucky to build a system where we have a very low-cost base. You know, writers are paid for output. And we're an all-remote company. And that low-cost space and remote working thing has made it a profitable business. We wouldn't be able to do it if we were paying writers full time, you know, reporter salary, signing off offices up in our hometown in London.

07:29 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. So I  appreciate you for understanding that and kinda drilling down on that because, you know, being able to kind of provide that value, create content. A lot of times people don't realize, the investment that you have to make, in terms of doing that. And I love how you've been able to kind of create that value. And it sounds like you understand too what the goal is, is to kind of be that leading destination and that's your north star. So however you can kind of execute on that, and it manifests itself in the site is what you try to do.

07:56 – Chris Muktar

That's right. Yeah.

07:57 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

08:09 – Chris Muktar

You know what?  I have a really simple one. So, the key thing is having a clearly defined goal that you can run all your decisions through. So, for example, you know, when I think about our business, there is an enormous publisher like WebMD. Right? And they do, like, me a hundred times what we do. And so whenever I think about, making a decision, I always run it through that prism. Will this get us to being one day closer to being the WebMD of jobs? You know? And that is how I make my decision. So that's whether we need to write content on a certain topic or hire a certain person or develop a social strategy or seek external funding, I would just ask, like, what would it take to get to that place?

08:58 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So this could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something you would tell a client or if you have to do a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

09:10 – Chris Muktar

I would tell I would tell my younger business self to focus, to do more of what works and less of what doesn't. You know, it's very it's very easy to get distracted by your passions or, the things that you find interesting or aesthetics. But, actually, it really it really comes down to the numbers. You really have to look at what's working and be brutally honest with yourself. You know, the business is not necessarily what you make it, but it's what the customers make it. And they will point with their wallet in the direction that you should be going, and you shouldn't try to make that decision for them. So, I think that's probably what what I what I would say. Like, businesses have an innate little amount of momentum. And once you kinda get that going, you kind of just have to follow it, you know, and not get in its way.

10:00 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, definitely appreciate that. And now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping to have different, quote, unquote, CEOs on the show. So, Chris, what does being a CEO mean to you?

10:13 – Chris Muktar

It means it's a very niche job, and what it means is to be the captain of the ship. So, like, I'll tell you a secret. I get all of my management tips from watching Star Trek Voyager. Right? And, you know, like, if ever I'm not sure how to deal with, a member of the team or a particular situation, I just, you know, I ask what would the captain do on Star Trek, basically, and try to do that. So, for me, being a CEO means providing leadership, encouragement, and creating opportunities for other people. So, leading the way of the team. And I'll say that what being a CEO also is is not doing their job. So it took me a long a long time to learn. Because ultimately, management is is is ultimately watching other people initially do a worse job than you.

So, you know, in your business and charge you for it. So, you know, it's frustrating. It's hard to step back and develop the kind of, like, benevolent leader where you'd say, okay, you make mistakes. Right? We're we're going in this direction. Being a CEO is a people job and a strategy job, and it's it's it's sitting on the bridge and directing things and making the team more effective. Whenever I hire a new recruit, I tell them, you know, straight from day one, my job is to make you successful as much as possible. So if there's something that you need to be successful, you need to tell me that is my only job, and there are no stupid questions. So, that's what it means to be, to me to be a CEO. I'm not at the end of my journey. So perhaps in ten years' time, I'll I'll have a different view, but but that's where I'm at.

12:06 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Whenever you have that different view, we're definitely gonna have you back on because I love that definition and that perspective. So I think that's our strategy because I think if we really start to understand that, we understand it's a people job and a strategy job, and we understand all the different pieces that we're ultimately doing. When we have that talent, we have the people. We're supposed to cultivate that environment for them to be able to strive and understand what we have.

The same amount of hours in the day and how we spend those hours and how we can best and most impactfully spend those hours is really where and how we're gonna get to where we ultimately hope to go. So truly appreciate that definition, Chris. I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is just pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know and, of course, how best they can get ahold of you, find out about all the awesome things you and the team are working on.

12:54. – Chris Muktar

Sure. Yeah. I mean, I think, like, the only thing I would pass it to anyone is that you know, if anyone's just starting out, it's a grind, and it's, it'll take a lot longer than you ever think it will take. And in the end, it's not for everyone, but that's okay. But if it is for you, it's a calling, and you just keep going, keep going. And, you know, it doesn't happen overnight. Few people become successful, you know, in a couple of years. And often it takes, you know, a decade of refining skills.

But it is a worthwhile endeavor. It is really well paid if you can get it get it right. You know? Starting a business is a little bit of luck, but actually, in the end, mostly a skill, and one that can be can be practiced and learned. So, you know, I would encourage anyone who's in the midst of that process to just keep pushing and pushing and pushing and be critical of yourself, and optimize and you'll find your way through.

13:52 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. Absolutely. I love that that last point. And for these two people who wanna get ahold of you, what's the best way for them to do that?

13:59 – Chris Muktar

You could drop me an email, Chris at wiki job dot co dot u k. It's on our website, wiki job dot co dot u k. You can find me on Twitter, LinkedIn, and all the usual places. Just Google. I'm there.

14:11 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Thank you so much again, Chris. We will have the links and information in the show notes. I love that last piece. And I think the quote that I remind myself of is that you know, we're all I'm always in a marathon, and I think we should remind ourselves of that as a leader and that the secret to overnight success is it takes ten years. And I think if you go into starting the business, you go into whatever start-up you're doing, with that mindset.

You understand you're there for the long haul and the ups and downs and all the all-around and all those things that happen in business. If we understand that, then that helps us to maybe, you know, lean more in on the thing that that we're ultimately hoping to do. And so I love and appreciate that last point. Appreciate your time, of course, and I hope you have a great rest of the day.

14:49 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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