Andy Jones

Andy Jones is the founder and Managing Director of Make IT Simple, a software development company in Droitwich, Worcestershire, which he founded in August 2005. His articles on software cost, SaaS platforms and AI draw on more than twenty years as a developer and business owner, including founding and selling one software company and serving as CTO when another was acquired.

Career history

Andy was educated at the Royal Grammar School Worcester. He started as a software developer and, from September 2004 to August 2005, worked as IT Manager at AC Selection, a recruitment company. There he trained on the Bond Adapt recruitment system, learned PHP and MySQL, built internal applications, and ran IT and network across four offices.

In August 2005 he founded Make IT Simple. The company has delivered more than 100 software projects since 2005, including SaaS platforms, bespoke business systems, mobile apps and AI, for clients that include Jaguar Land Rover and Samsung. Clients have made more than £10 million from software the company has built. Examples include Octopaye, Saeker, Infinitemp, Floc and grace.

Alongside Make IT Simple, Andy is CTO of Sonesse (since October 2024), FlowLedger (since June 2020) and Newbury Partners (since January 2017). At Newbury Partners he acts as technical architect for client projects and oversees the infrastructure that hosts client applications.

Companies he has built and sold

Andy was the sole founder of Silverline Sales Performance Ltd, a SaaS product for recruitment companies that helped consultants track performance and focus on goals. He led product development, client implementations and infrastructure, and sold the business to Parasol, the umbrella payroll group now called Optionis.

From May 2020 to October 2024 he was CTO of MedOptimise, a medicines optimisation platform used in the NHS by integrated care boards, primary care networks and GP practices. FDB (First Databank) acquired it in 2024, and the product is now FDB CoordinateRx.

How that shapes his advice

Because Andy has been the person paying for software and the person selling a software business, he writes about cost, ownership and what buyers check during due diligence. He understands the recruitment and umbrella payroll sector from his earlier roles, and Make IT Simple built Octopaye, HMRC-recognised payroll software for temporary recruitment.

Andy’s team has audited AI-built (“vibe-coded”) apps several times and brought them into production. Recurring findings include exposed secrets and API keys in client-side code, databases with row-level security never configured, access control enforced only in the front end, and missing input validation. This hands-on work grounds his writing on the limits of AI-generated code.

What Andy writes about

Andy publishes practical pieces on the Make IT Simple site. He covers the true cost of building software in his bespoke cost article, and sets out what goes wrong with AI-generated apps in what we find when vibe-coded apps reach production. His broader software development cost guide helps readers budget. He also describes his advisory role in the fractional CTO service. More of his posts are on the blog home.

If you are planning a software build, review our bespoke software development services. You can contact Andy via our contact page or his LinkedIn profile.