A small team you can always get hold of.
Glide is a founder-led agency in Essex. We build and run the websites that bring interior design studios their enquiries. Experienced people on every job, AI in the engine room, and Mike answerable for the lot.
Meet the Team
A small team who build, improve and look after the work ourselves. You deal with Mike on what the work is and Matt on getting it done.
Mike McDonnell
Founder
Mike runs scoping, sets the strategy and signs off every build before it ships.
Matthew Ludlow
Client Success Manager
Matt keeps delivery moving day to day, keeps clients updated and makes sure the small things do not slip.
Abbie McDonnell
Finance Manager
Abbie keeps billing clear, boring and on time, so payments and invoices do not become a drama.
Amber Cannon
Head of Socials
Amber runs social content where it makes commercial sense, with a sharp eye for what people will stop and watch.
Our story
How Glide really started
Mike taught himself web design straight out of school, building sites for local businesses and hand-coding everything the hard way. It did not pay, so he took the sensible route instead: five years as a Quantity Surveyor, pricing jobs and standing on the client's side of the table with the same builders and trades a design-and-build studio deals with every week.
Then a serious illness ended that career almost overnight. Rebuilding from it is where Glide comes from. (Mike wrote a book about that chapter if you ever want the full story. These days he is the fittest he has ever been, and the business runs the same way.)
Client zero was family: a small supplement brand called Proflax that needed to sell online properly. The results came, word spread through local businesses, friends and family, and “Mike's Marketing” quickly became Glide, because the market was full of slow, unreliable agencies and Mike wanted to build the one known for fast, sleek, frictionless work. Websites, SEO, growth, proof and clear delivery are still the heart of it.
What changed is how we work. AI now helps in the background with research, first drafts and the repetitive build work, so a small team can move faster and cost you less than a big agency would. A person still decides the strategy. A person still checks it works. Mike still signs off every site.
That is the whole point. You get experienced, founder-led work without the agency bloat. AI is not the thing we sell. What you get is a website that keeps bringing in enquiries: built properly, found on Google, and improved month after month instead of left alone the day it goes live.
These days we focus that on interior designers and design-and-build studios, where the work is the pitch and the website has to do it justice.
Why “Glide”?
We chose the name because so many web projects feel slow, painful, and overcomplicated. We do it differently. From first brief to launch, the process is smooth and visible, no hand-waving, no surprises, no agency drama.
Working with us should feel effortless, like gliding through the air.
The awards on the shelf
Two so far: New SEO Agency of the Year 2024 at the Corporate LiveWire Innovation & Excellence Awards (that is the certificate, and the grin), and Most Client-Focused Web Design Agency, Essex 2024 from SME News. We would trade both for one more client saying the work paid for itself, but they look good on the shelf.
Who we work with
We work with interior designers, design-and-build studios, kitchen and bathroom studios and the joinery and furniture makers around them: businesses where the work is the pitch and the marketing has to look as good as the finished room. We build the website that wins you enquiries, get you found on Google and in AI search, and run the Instagram alongside it when you want that too. We're based in Essex, we work UK-wide, and you deal directly with the founder, not an account manager.
What makes working with us different
How we work
The people you meet are the people who do the work. Nobody hands your job down to someone you have never spoken to.
We're selective about the projects we take on so we can deliver the level of service and quality we promise. If we don't think we can build something genuinely useful for your business, we'll say so.
Ready to talk about your studio?
If this sounds like what you have been looking for, tell us what you are trying to fix and we will come back within one working day.