In the Spotlight with: Andy Vaughan
17.10.24 NEWS
Meet the Mosaic members!
Today’s In The Spotlight we’re chatting to Andy Vaughan, founder of Jolly Good Web. Andy has been with us in Mosaic for a little over 6 months now.
Jolly Good Web is a UK-based team of five, providing website design & development services to companies across the UK, USA and Europe.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and why you started Jolly Good Web, Andy.
I served in the Royal Air Force for just under seven years, and started learning web development in 2019/2020 on my days off between shifts. As I got more confident I managed to win a few small clients, and this gradually snowballed! I left the RAF in 2021 and joined a startup company of about 20 people in the drone industry, eventually working my way up to Head of Business Operations while simultaneously running JGW. In 2022 I took on JGW’s first member of staff to help with the ever-increasing workload (shout out to Max, who is still with us!) and it’s grown from there ever since. After a brief stint working as Head of Ops for a software development agency, Mission Ctrl, I chose to go full-time for JGW in May of this year – I felt that if I didn’t take the chance on myself of going fully self-employed now, then I never would!
Why did you join Mosaic?
I looked around a few places in Lincoln, and Mosaic has the best community feeling by far. I worked from home for nearly three years and frankly got a bit sick of my own company! I loved the vibe of Mosaic when I was shown around – everyone from the Mosaic staff to the people and agencies working in this space were so friendly and welcoming – I definitely felt like it was the right move.
What do you find beneficial about working in Mosaic?
There’s so much opportunity to collaborate with everyone - and I don’t just mean taking on / giving paid work. Just being able to lean over the screen and ask a quick question of one of the many subject matter experts on various topics here is so useful. And it’s a really nice feeling to be able to give back on topics that I’m knowledgeable about in return.
Where do you see yourself and your business in the next 5 years?
Hopefully, the Jolly Good Web brand will be synonymous with web design in Lincoln! I’m not attaching a headcount aspiration to this – we’ll grow as large as we need to. But being well-known as an agency producing consistently high-quality work for the many local and national brands that we currently serve (and that I hope to work with in the future) is the aim.
What has been your biggest challenge so far?
Not having a boss. It’s been an interesting experience to lose that layer of management above me (although arguably, clients fill that gap). I’ve recognised that this actually has the potential to impact my own development – so I recently decided to take on an experienced company director that I know very well as our Non Executive Director. Having someone to be able to run through my ideas, and who I trust to give me robust & unfiltered feedback, has been invaluable. If any agency owners reading this face the same challenge, I’d urge you to consider whether there’s any experienced business leaders you know and trust that might be willing to take up an NED role with you.
Tell me about your biggest success so far?
We’ve delivered website projects to, and secured support contracts with, some major organisations including the British Army’s Royal Corps of Signals which I’m particularly proud of. We were previously retained on an enterprise-level contract by Wejo and supported them through their $1bn public listing in the USA on the Nasdaq. But most of all I consider the fantastic team around me to be our biggest success! I’m blown away by the work that they consistently produce, and very much embrace the ethos of “hire people much better than yourself”.
Three words to describe Mosaic…
A: Community, Collaboration, Opportunity.
Lastly, any advice?
A: Keep moving. It won’t always be forwards, but keep moving.
