Author: Rosie Christie, director, Fusion Surfaces

When you start a business, you might think the hard part will be getting customers. I certainly did.

We had to build everything from scratch: case studies, credibility and trust before we could scale. Looking back, that part wasn’t the hardest though. The hardest part has been people.

I came from a teaching background, where getting people to do their job well didn’t feel like such a battle. In business, it’s very different.

Without clear structure, things slip. Jobs don’t get finished properly, standards drop, corners get cut. It’s taken us years to find the right people.

At the same time, we started the business when our daughter was just two years old. That brought a completely different layer of pressure.

Jade Mitchell and I are not just business partners. We’re a couple, raising a family and running a company together.

From the outside, it can look like flexibility. In reality, it often means you never really switch off.

And because we’re both in the business, there’s no safety net. If things go quiet, it’s on us. That pressure sits there all the time.