About Simply Works
Hi, I’m Jonjo.
I build software, review awkward customer journeys and make small tools for jobs that should be easier.
Simply Works is deliberately small. You deal with me, I do the work, and if the smallest useful answer is smaller than the thing you originally asked for, I’ll tell you.
I’ve been programming for around 25 years.
I started while I was still at school, messing with HTML and selling custom MySpace HTML profiles before building websites was something you could do by describing one to an AI.
Since then I’ve picked up a Computer Science degree, spent around a decade working in field-service engineering, and kept building software alongside it all.
Software taught me to think about logic, systems and edge cases. Field work taught me what happens when the neat process on paper meets an actual person, an awkward handoff, missing information or something nobody thought through properly.
The tools have changed a lot. The bit I enjoy has not: understanding how something works, finding the part that does not, and making it cleaner.
The useful bit
I notice the awkward bits people learn to work around.
A lot of friction becomes invisible once you have lived with it for long enough.
You know which button to press.
You know which spreadsheet column matters.
You know what that vague label means.
You know who to ask when the process breaks.
You know the strange little workaround everybody uses.
A new customer does not.
That is why I like approaching problems from the outside. I want to see what somebody has to guess, remember, repeat or work around before anybody teaches me the answer.
ADHD is part of this too.
I do not mean that in the “ADHD is a superpower” sense. It is simply part of how my brain deals with ambiguity and broken logic: I find them very hard to ignore.
Hang on. That does not make sense.
A date that contradicts another date. A link that lands somewhere unexpected. Wording that says one thing while the next step assumes another. A tiny detail that only makes sense if you already know the answer.
Once I notice it, I want to follow the chain until I understand why it is there and what it causes further down the line.
Often the useful fix is much smaller than the mess it creates downstream.
How I work
I would rather fix the right thing than build the biggest thing.
I do not start by asking how much software I can build or how large a piece of work I can sell. I start by trying to understand the actual job.
Sometimes the answer is an existing product. Sometimes it is one small tool that removes a repetitive task. Sometimes the problem is not obvious enough to build anything yet, so I start with a Friction Audit.
The useful answer might be a full piece of software. It might also be changing one label, correcting one broken link, removing one step or stopping somebody from copying the same information between two places every Friday.
Both count.
NOTICE
What is the person having to figure out?
FOLLOW
What happens because of that difficulty?
FIX
What is the smallest useful change?
That is basically Simply Works.
Away from the keyboard
Outside work, I’m still a massive nerd.
I read a lot, take photos, mess around with 3D printing and spend an unreasonable amount of time disappearing down technical rabbit holes.
I’m into Warhammer, chess, science, technology and games that give me far too many systems to understand.
That usually means factory-building games, strategy games, strange indie games and anything that rewards figuring out how all the moving parts fit together.
Photography scratches a similar itch. I like noticing things other people walk past: odd architecture, overlooked details, brutal concrete, empty spaces and places that feel slightly unreal.
I also have cats, which means a significant amount of my technical decision-making is performed while being stared at by an animal that wants food.
Things I happily disappear into
- Reading
- Photography
- 3D printing
- Warhammer
- Chess
- Gaming
- Science
- Technology
- Cats
Basically, if it has a system to understand, something to make or an odd detail to notice, I’m probably interested.
The point of it
Why Simply Works?
Because software has a habit of getting bigger than the problem it was meant to solve.
More screens.
More settings.
More process.
More things to remember.
More software to manage the other software.
I like smaller answers.
Simply Works exists to find unnecessary difficulty and remove it without automatically turning every problem into a giant project.
Sometimes I build the answer. Sometimes I find the problem first. Sometimes the best answer is telling somebody they already have what they need.
That is the kind of business I want to run.
Next step
Got something that should work better?
If you already know the annoying job, tell me about it.
If you only know something feels wrong, that is fine too.