Founders Unfiltered: Sarah Blackburn on Building GameOn, Trusting Your Instincts and Knowing When to Say No

For the latest edition of Founders Unfiltered, we sit down with Sarah Blackburn, Founder and Director of GameOn, to explore more than two decades of building an agency in an industry that has seen its fair share of change.

From starting out with a single temporary client to growing GameOn into an established industry agency, Sarah reflects on the uncertainty of those early years, the lessons learned through recessions and a global pandemic, and the importance of knowing when an opportunity is right for the business.

She also shares her views on leadership, building a team around character as much as experience, the changing role of AI in iGaming, and why the industry should pay more attention to the people who are building what comes next.

With a strong emphasis on instinct, relationships and staying true to the people behind the business, Sarah offers a thoughtful perspective on what it really takes to build something that lasts.

1. What was the original idea behind your company, and what convinced you to take the leap and build it?

I don't think there was ever a grand plan to build GameOn into what it is today.

I joined the industry 20 years ago but prior to that I had built 7 years worth of marketing and PR experience within a variety of other sectors. I loved agency life and really enjoyed the variety of looking after multiple clients with their own ambitions for their businesses.

I was given an opportunity to explore the possibility of launching my own agency and although the stars didn’t align with those partners at the time, I decided to go it alone with the promise of my first client joining me. The brand “GameOn” came to be in a dream and I woke up the following day and registered the company straight away and the rest is history.

2. What has been the hardest part of building the business that nobody warned you about?

It can be quite lonely at the very start and although I was surrounded by much love and support, ultimately the direction and success of the company and also your income is all on you. 

When you're employed, you broadly know what's coming at the end of every month but when you start a business with one client on a temporary contract, you don't have that. There's always a question of "what comes next?"

That uncertainty doesn't necessarily disappear when the business gets bigger either, it just changes shape.

In the beginning, I hustled because I had to. I said yes to opportunities because every new client mattered. But one of the hardest things to learn was actually when to stop saying yes.

There came a point where I had to recognise that taking every piece of work wasn't necessarily good for the business. We needed to become much more strategic about the types of companies we wanted to work with and, importantly, where we knew we could genuinely exceed expectations.

Nobody really tells you that one of the signs you're building a stronger business is becoming comfortable enough to turn business away.

3. What has been your biggest mistake as a founder, and what did it teach you?

All founders make mistakes and that’s all part of the journey. I’m not sure I’ve got any one “big” mistake that stands out but every day is a school day. 

There will always be errors in judgement but what I’ll say, is trust your intuition. We have pivoted our business a few times now in accordance with market demand and where we’ve been able to indentify gaps in the market to enter. When we make any big decision or change, I have to feel it in the pit of my stomach. I get a physical reaction that will tell me if it’s right for us and I’ve always trusted it. 

4. Was there ever a point when you seriously questioned whether the business would succeed? What happened?

I’ve always known that GameOn would succeed. That I would succeed or at the very least, be very happy with my career path, even if I was a solo rider.

However we have experienced challenges that at the time did seem unsurmountable on paper, and when I say paper, I mean the P&L. The 2008 recession shortly after launching a new business in an industry that had never experienced a recession was brutal. One I will never forget, but also one that has perhaps made me more cautious and alert to market changes.

Our industry is built on connection and 2020/21 was a nerve wracking time for our business as it was fraught with uncertainty at the start. Nobody new at the time what the impact would be on B2B suppliers until people settled into the “new normal”. We were one of the lucky ones.  

These situations are a frightening position for any founder because suddenly something completely outside your control is threatening everything you've built. You can work harder, make more calls and come up with new ideas, but you can't personally fix a global recession or a pandemic.

Eventually confidence and life returns and budgets started moving again, but I've never forgotten it.

The practical lesson was very simple: have money in reserve. There will be periods of unrest that you cannot predict and cannot control.

The bigger lesson was probably that uncertainty is simply part of running a business. You can either allow it to paralyse you or work out what remains within your control and keep moving.

5. What is the biggest lesson you have learned about leadership and building the right team?

I quite often say to clients or people in the industry that “likeability” goes a long way and I like to think that’s one of the main characteristics we look for when we’re looking for people to join our team.

One of the biggest lessons is that it’s not all about experience. Anyone can learn about the industry and working agency side, you need to learn a little about a lot because we work across multiple markets and sectors within the industry. Experience is great and certainly helps but what is most important is how that person fits you in terms of character, personality and how much ey care about the success of their team mates, the company and the clients they are responsible for. That is the golden ticket.The next lesson is letting go and trusting your team to represent your brand and your client’s brand to the best of their ability. I believe that I’m the luckiest founder of them all. Not wishing to sound too sentimental, but the team we have built at GameOn is extraordinary and therefore letting go has been a really easy process for me over the years. 

6. What has been your biggest challenge when it comes to growing and scaling the business?

Knowing when and how to scale without forcing it.

GameOn's growth has actually been very organic, and we've deliberately kept it that way. It has always been about people first.

Everyone who works for GameOn has qualities that make them right for the business. In many cases they're people I've known for years. 

What connects them is their desire to deliver the best possible experience for their colleagues and clients.

The other challenge is making sure growth doesn't dilute that. As an agency gets bigger and adds more services, it would be very easy for our service to become more transactional.

We've always wanted the opposite.

The challenge is scaling the capability of GameOn while retaining the feeling that our clients are working with people who genuinely know them, understand their business and care about the outcome. And although my role has changed a lot, especially over the last 12/18 months, I will always make myself available to clients in support of the AMs as and when needed. 

7. What do you think the iGaming industry gets wrong about entrepreneurship and innovation?

I think we're sometimes too interested in celebrating the people at the top and not interested enough in the people actually building what's next.

The industry loves a "Top 100 Most Influential People" click bait list. Personally, I'd be quite happy if we got rid of most of them or at the very least, didn’t celebrate them.

There's an obsession with C-level visibility that can mean we keep hearing from the same people about the same subjects. Meanwhile, there are incredibly talented junior and mid-level people across the industry with completely different perspectives who rarely get asked what they think.

Those people are the future of iGaming.

The same applies to entrepreneurship. We tend to celebrate the success once it's visible, rather than talking about what came before it: the uncertainty, the wrong decisions, the clients you shouldn't have taken, the months when you're worried about cash flow and the constant process of changing your mind as you learn.

8. Which current iGaming trend do you believe is genuinely transformative, and which is being overhyped?

AI is genuinely transformative, but I also think elements of the conversation around it are massively overhyped.

We all know that there are areas where AI can make businesses more efficient, help people interrogate data, accelerate research and remove some of the repetitive work that takes talented people away from higher-value activity. That's going to have a real impact across iGaming and marketing.

Where I become more sceptical is when efficiency gets confused with expertise.

GameOn has spent more than two decades building relationships. You cannot automate somebody genuinely caring about a client. You can't prompt your way to 20 years of industry knowledge or manufacture trust because you've found a faster way to produce content. 

So I'm very interested in what AI enables people to do, but much less interested in the idea that it's going to make great people redundant.

Used well, I think it will make talented people better. Used badly, it'll just help businesses produce more average work, faster.

9. What has founding a company cost you personally, beyond money?

Other than a few (many) sleepless nights, I can’t think of anything that it’s cost me or maybe it’s because I’ve got a short memory. 

In the early days, it was definitely worry. Worry is one of the worse feelings, espeically when you feel like you’re on your own. Luckily for me, I have always been greatly supported by my family and especially my husband who became my business partner 12 years ago and who gives me the freedom to run the day-to-day operation but is the greatest support and champion of my, quite often, latest idea.

There were years where I couldn’t take a holiday without working every day and it was just part and parcel of running a business. You don’t really think of it at the time as a “cost” or a sacrifice. You do what you have to do and because you also genuinely love what you’re building.

Ultimately, GameOn has given me an incredible network, beautiful friendships, experiences and the opportunity to work alongside people I genuinely love and respect. 

So yes, you sacrifice things, but I can genuinely say that I’ve gained more than I could have ever imagined possible.

10. If you could go back to day one, what would you tell yourself, and what would you do differently?

I'd tell myself not to spend so much time waiting for certainty, because it never arrives.

That's something I tell other women thinking about launching businesses now. If the numbers work and the demand is there, don't sit around waiting for the "right time". The right time rarely comes.

Back yourself.

I'd probably become more selective sooner too. Not every opportunity needs to be pursued and not every potential client is necessarily right for your business.

But I wouldn't change the decision to start.

I began GameOn with one temporary client that paid enough to cover my rent and bills, without knowing where the second client was coming from. More than 20 years later, we're still here.

If I'd waited until I felt completely ready, I'm not sure GameOn would ever have existed.