People often see the growth. The contracts. The team. The numbers.
What they don’t always see is what sits behind it.
When I launched GAME FM in 2024, I wasn’t stepping into the unknown in terms of the work itself.
I’d spent years operating across some of Manchester’s best-known estates.
What was new was the weight of it.
What nobody tells you as a founder is that everything becomes yours. Every decision. Every problem. Every gap.
When you work within a larger organisation, even at senior level, there is always a layer around you.
Structure, support, separation. As a founder, that disappears. You are the structure.
In the early stages, that means doing everything. Not occasionally, but constantly.
You move between strategy and frontline issues in the same day, sometimes in the same hour.
You’re thinking about growth, then dealing with something operational. You’re having a conversation about long-term direction, then switching straight into something that needs resolving immediately.
From the outside, growth looks like momentum. Internally, it often feels like controlled pressure.
In our first year, we secured more than £1.2m in contracted work and built a team of more than 30 people. On paper, that looks like strong progress.
What it doesn’t show is the pace of decision-making required to sustain it.
As the business grows, the pressure doesn’t go away. It just evolves.
You’re no longer just responsible for your own output. You’re responsible for your team, your clients and the standards you’ve set.
You’re making decisions that impact people’s livelihoods, not just performance metrics.
At the same time, you’re navigating commercial realities. Pricing pressure, client expectations and the constant balance between maintaining standards and staying competitive.
In facilities management, there is always a risk of the market drifting towards a race to the bottom. Lower cost, reduced service, compromised delivery.
We’ve made a conscious decision not to follow that path.
That means investing in people, paying the Real Living Wage and focusing on service quality, even when it would be easier commercially to do otherwise.
That decision brings pressure, but it also builds trust.
Mental strain
Another part that isn’t spoken about enough is the mental side of it.
Being a founder can be isolating. You spend a lot of time in your own head, working through decisions that don’t always have clear answers. You carry the responsibility, even when things are going well.
Programmes like ASCEND have helped with that, not just from a knowledge perspective but from being around other founders dealing with the same realities.
Despite all of that, there are moments that make it worthwhile.
Seeing a team you’ve built deliver at a high standard. Watching people grow. Hearing clients recognise the difference in how something is run.
Those moments don’t make headlines, but they matter.
What nobody tells you as a founder is that you don’t ever really arrive. You just get better at carrying it.
- Want to share your founder story? Email chris.maguire@businesscloud.co.uk