Effective Collaboration in Web Agencies and Web Development

Adam:
Hello everyone, this is Adam Weeks from Woo Biz Chat. So glad you guys could all join us here today. I’m here with Emma Young. Emma, who are you?

Emma:
I would point to myself, but she can’t see me in this chat anymore. Who am I? I am Emma. I am Emma Young, and I’m here with Adam.

Adam:
And today we are joined by Zach. He’s going to be sharing with us about collaboration—effective and efficient collaboration. It’s on everybody’s mind. If it’s not, it should be because wow, it is so important in this business. If you are not collaborating with people effectively, you’re wasting your time and frustrating people, and we thought, what better person to discuss this topic than Zach? Hey Zach, welcome. Glad you’re here. Could you tell us a little bit about who you are?

Zach:
Thanks for having me, guys. I appreciate it. I’m really excited to share a little bit. My name is Zach Hendershot. I’m the CEO of a product called Miruni, which is focused on accelerating and accentuating collaboration, especially for agencies and anybody working on the web and building great products. So that’s what I’m excited about, and I’m excited to share a little bit more about my thoughts on how we enhance that, grow it, and do really great collaboration on the web.

Adam:
There you go. See? I told you Zach was the person to talk about this topic. He thinks about it a lot. So let’s do it. Awesome.

Emma:
Nice. So actually, we kind of just want to start off with what sparked the idea of Miruni? Was there a specific “aha” moment that made you think, “We need to fix this”? And on a side quest, where does the name Miruni come from?

Zach:
Yeah, I love that. I will give you both answers quickly, or so. Miruni came from a long history I’ve had of building websites of various sorts—all the way from marketing sites and eCommerce sites to complex custom software for Fortune 1000 customers and everything in between. In doing that over 15, 20 years at this point, I think I experienced what many of us experience, which is frustration with the process of just really honing in on the details of what’s being asked for or what needs to be done and how to do that. At a certain point, that problem became too much to bear, and we realized, hey, there’s an opportunity here. That opportunity is really in figuring out how we use the technology and software available to us to solve this problem—make communication easier, clearer, more direct, and more precise, while also bringing more data into the conversation.

I’m a big data guy. I’m an engineer by trade, and when I can point to something measurable and quantifiable, I have better clarity. So that’s really the origin story—building a tool that collects data, makes it easily accessible, and drives clarity in communication. The name “Miruni” comes from an ancient Japanese art in glasswork. The idea is that it’s a pane of glass—a beautifully painted pane of glass. You communicate what you’re trying to do and how you’re trying to do it. That was the inspiration—creating a pane of glass on the web, marking it up, and communicating with clarity, all drawing from the artistry of traditional Japanese glasswork.

Emma:
Oh, that’s so nice. I like that.

Zach:
That’s—

Emma:
Beautiful! I know. Why can’t we come up with stuff like that? That one name is—

Zach:
I’m running with this one. There you go.

Adam:
So many of us have to collaborate with clients, and I’m sure you’ve had to do that. You don’t get through this business—building websites and building projects for other people—without collaborating with clients. I’m curious if you have any stories where it just went back and forth and back and forth with a client, kind of this accordion effect of “Oh no, back and forth,” and an example where this felt so important, you thought, “I need this thing to exist.”

Zach:
I mean, lots of examples, but I think there are a couple of interesting ones that really forged in my brain the importance of this. We all know agencies live or die by the billable hour in some capacity, and every hour you spend trying to align on what the ask is or what the request is—well, that’s expensive and cuts into razor-thin margins. From a business operations perspective, it impacts customer relationships and the trust you build.

Early on in my career, there were a couple of different instances that stick out to me. We were building a direct travel website, managing all sorts of trips, including heli-skiing trips, adventure tours, and more. These were complex products to sell. Each trip had different unique characteristics that had to be sold and bundled as part of the package presented to customers, and also managed operationally.

One example was working with a small mom-and-pop whitewater rafting company in Colorado. They had a very unique model because, of course, you have to differentiate yourself. They were selling specific trips where customers could get premium services. We were trying to help them market and position these trips on the web and make them viable with all sorts of different configurable dropdowns. We spent a full week going back and forth, honing in on details like which trips had which premium add-ons—like custom meals on the water. Then, there were all the dietary restrictions to consider: vegan, cherry allergies, etc.

It was a nightmare. This was just one operator at the time, and we had 50 different operators around the U.S. The complexity was staggering. They knew exactly how their business worked—it was second nature to them. But to us, managing hundreds of different trips, it was extremely confusing. That experience really stuck with me because if we had only had better tools to articulate and communicate the intention and outcomes we needed, the entire relationship would have been smoother.

Of course, we ended up making it work, but it was long, arduous, and it broke some trust along the way. The client felt like we should know their business better than we did. It was painful for everyone involved, and that was one of those defining moments where I realized we needed a better way to communicate and collaborate efficiently.

Emma:
Okay, so it sounds like some clients want to be more heavily involved while others maybe want to just disappear until the last moment. Do you have any advice on balancing how much you involve clients without slowing down the projects? And for the ones that want to disappear, do you kind of push to get more information? Is there a yin and yang?

Zach:
It’s an art, I would say, right? And it pains me because of my engineering background—it should be fixed, predictable, “This is how it works.” But no. From my perspective, I think there are a couple of things to do. One is to make sure that you are, first, really clear on the core things that you need, regardless of whether they want to be engaged or not, in order to do the best quality work for them.

For the client, these are the things I need unequivocally. We’ll get them early, we’ll get them often, and we will set clear expectations around that. That doesn’t work for things that you learn as you go through the process of working and understanding more about their business and what their needs are.

The way I think about it is: let’s make sure we set expectations that there are touchpoints. Maybe one client wants them weekly, maybe one client wants them quarterly, but make sure you have a consistent touchpoint. This way, you can pile up the things you need answers to, align on expectations, and just stay in touch.

I’ve seen where it fails—it’s when you just lean into the fact that the client doesn’t want to be involved and just wants you to handle it all. If you go months without talking, you slowly grow apart. You slowly misunderstand their needs, and you steer the product in a direction that they’re misaligned to. Then suddenly, they show up in a meeting and they’re angry because you didn’t anticipate what they wanted. And then you lose a client, lose revenue, or the relationship gets damaged.

So for me, it’s just consistency—good expectations, making sure you have touchpoints whether they want them or not, communicating the importance of why you have to stay close to them, and in some ways, forcing their hand. It doesn’t have to be every week, but it has to be consistent and reproducible.

Adam:
I love that you talked about setting expectations. I feel that setting expectations is the difference between a good and bad outcome. If people expect something to take a long time, then they aren’t worried about it because that was the expectation. But if they thought it was going to be quick and it’s not, suddenly there’s friction.

I’d love to hear more about best practices when it comes to setting expectations. You clearly, with the “helicopter client,” have been through that. Any best practices when you’re beginning an engagement?

Zach:
Early and often is what I say, both internally and to myself. I think we fall into—well, I’ll point to myself. Being an engineer, I like to build and execute and put stuff out there. But expectation-setting really comes down to being clear and communicative, often, around what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and what the outcomes are that we’re trying to achieve together.

All of those things have to happen all the time. So for me, it’s often about how we set good expectations initially and then how we evolve those expectations materially and intentionally. By that, I mean we all go into a project with a clear understanding: “This is what we’re trying to do, this is what needs to happen.”

Then fast forward an hour, maybe a week, and suddenly you learn that everything you thought was the right thing to do… wasn’t. In those situations, you have to force yourself to sit down and have the conversation around the changed expectations. That may not always be a great conversation because, as practitioners, we know things change based on what we learn about the business, the market, or the product. But often, the client doesn’t understand that.

To them, everything is perfectly fine: “What I told you last week is still relevant and needs to be delivered exactly as I said.” But we know there are a lot of variables that go into doing that successfully.

So having hard conversations, frequently and transparently, has been the most effective way to steer the client along with you as you go. And I know why people struggle with these conversations—because they’re hard. But if you don’t push through, you end up with poor customer relationships, lost trust, lost projects, and lost revenue. The longer you build trust and maintain the winding path of expectation-setting, the better outcomes you’ll get.

Emma:
Yeah. So, one last question before we move on from clients. I feel like every agency has one nightmare project where communication completely broke down. Without naming any names, do you have a story like that—one that just vacuumed everything out of you? And what did you learn from it?

Zach:
Yeah. So everything I just told you? We did the opposite of that.

This is a somewhat recent example, over the last year or two, where expectation-setting fell apart. And I’d say there were some defensible reasons for that, but in some ways, not defensible—we knew better.

It was a big, complex engagement—building a relatively complex piece of software, lots of integrations, lots of people involved, lots of unique user interactions. The client was very opinionated about how things should be done and how they should look.

If I’m being honest, early on, we knew—if we were truly honest with ourselves—that some of the foundational expectations of how this would work and how it would integrate with their IT systems were just pipe dreams. But we convinced ourselves that we could figure it out. Despite our early reservations that it wasn’t going to work, we didn’t set clear expectations upfront that we needed to pivot and change things.

And we didn’t.

So it turned into a nightmare client situation. The expectations were off. What we delivered, at the end of the day, wasn’t aligned with where they thought things were going. And while their expectations weren’t exactly realistic, we didn’t walk them through that winding path of expectation-setting quickly and accurately, so we ended up in that bad state.

That experience reinforced what I said earlier—about not missing the hard conversations. Because when you avoid those little, low-grade, hard conversations, you end up with a massive, high-grade, really painful, really challenging conversation at the end. And that’s not what you want. You want lots of little, manageable, hard conversations along the way.

Adam:
I like that. Yeah, lots of little conversations—even if they’re difficult. They’re not easy, they’re not fun, but they prevent the disaster at the end. That’s really helpful.

As we talk about collaboration, we’ve focused on the agency side—setting expectations and working with clients. But let’s transition, because sometimes you can do this all by yourself. And good on you if you can do everything by yourself! But I don’t recommend that. I think it’s better to work with a team when you can, where everyone brings strengths.

Any thoughts on working together collaboratively with a team? And let me specify: best practices. I imagine some pain points are passing things back and forth, like, “Okay, I’ve finished my part, now it’s your turn.” What are some of the common pain points, and then what are the best practices to deal with them?

Zach:
What you called out, Adam, is really interesting. It’s kind of the telephone game—we all hear about it, we all talk about it. Every time there’s a handoff in your business, no matter how good you are, something gets lost in translation.

So, for me, minimizing handoffs is key. How do you structure your organization to have the fewest number of people necessary to service the client while maintaining quality? That’s the first step—reduce unnecessary handoffs.

The next step: how do you automate and systematize those handoffs as much as possible? You can’t do 100%—though with AI and other tools, more automation is possible—but tools for managing and capturing work are critical.

Zach:
So, to continue, once you’ve minimized the number of handoffs, the next big piece is figuring out how to automate as much of that process as possible. You can’t automate everything—though with AI and newer tools, we’re getting closer—but capturing and structuring work systematically is a game changer.

For instance, instead of relying on emails, Slack messages, or a loose collection of notes, you want to make sure every handoff follows a clear, repeatable structure. That could be a standardized format for handing off work internally, an established workflow in a project management tool, or even automated processes that ensure no details are lost when a task transitions between people.

The more you can remove manual effort from the system, the better. Let people focus on what they do best—whether that’s designing, developing, writing, or strategizing—and automate everything else that doesn’t require human creativity or decision-making.

Beyond that, internal expectations and communication play a huge role. If you pass an issue from one team to another, there should be a defined process for how it moves, who owns it, and what’s expected. If you leave things ambiguous—like, “Oh, I sent it over, they should know what to do”—that’s when things start to fall apart. So, setting expectations internally is just as important as setting them with clients.

Emma:
I very much agree with what you said about how it’s not just the tool that matters, but also the SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures), the processes, and all the documentation that make the best use of those tools. But nowadays, a lot of us work in remote environments, and it’s easy to fall into the trap of “You do this task, I’ll take this one, and you close that ticket,” rather than actually collaborating together. Do you have any tips or tricks to avoid that?

Zach:
It’s hard, Emma, and I think that’s what makes the transition to remote work as the default so interesting. Remote work brings a ton of benefits, but it also makes organic collaboration harder.

A few years ago, if you were in an office, you could overhear conversations, pop over to a coworker’s desk, or naturally absorb the way a process worked just by watching it unfold. But in a remote world, you don’t get that osmosis—you have to be way more intentional about how you document and communicate things.

Best practices for me? Document more than you would have three or four years ago. Use tools that allow you to create workflows and checklists that are automatically generated. Even in Slack, there are tools that help systematize processes and make sure steps don’t get skipped.

The key is making it easy to follow. If your system is too complex, people won’t use it. The best processes are the ones that integrate naturally into how people already work. That’s why I like tools that allow workflows to be embedded directly into Slack or project management systems—because people are already there. You don’t want to force them into an external system that feels like extra work.

Emma:
Have you tried the new Slack templates? I feel like I might be missing out on something.

Zach:
Yeah, I have! The templates in Slack are actually a good example of what I was just talking about. They allow you to set up predefined channels, add specific people, and even create preset workflows or checklists for common projects.

For agencies and service businesses, you often do the same types of things over and over again—onboarding a new client, kicking off a project, delivering a report, etc. Instead of starting from scratch each time, you can set up a Slack template that automatically includes the right people, the right tasks, and any standard documents or resources you always need.

It helps ensure consistency, so every client experience feels polished and nothing gets forgotten. Even simple things—like making sure every new client gets their onboarding documents in a structured way—can make a big difference.

Emma:
Okay, I’m clearly not using it enough. I always default to Google Docs for everything, but maybe I should try it out.

Zach:
Not to knock Google Docs—I use it too! But here’s the thing: Google Docs is great, but it’s outside of where most of the team is working every day. Slack, on the other hand, is where most of us already live, so if you can embed those processes right there, it makes it easier to follow through.

Adam:
That makes sense. Okay, let’s shift gears a bit. We’re still talking about collaboration—this time, within a team. Say you’re working on a big custom project, maybe helping a client schedule helicopter tours or something. What do you do when you’re depending on someone to complete their work, and they’re just… not cutting it? What’s the tendency—to jump in and do it for them? What happens when the people you’re working with just aren’t delivering?

Emma:
They’re fired!

Zach:
Haha, yeah. I guess that happens in some cases. But in reality, it’s a tough situation, especially in a service business or an agency. You rely so much on others to execute—not just your internal team, but also clients who need to provide input, assets, or approvals.

When people aren’t delivering, it comes down to accountability and clear expectations. And I’ll say this: most of the time when I’ve been let down by someone, I blame myself first. Not because I expect perfection, but because I realize I might not have been clear enough about what I needed, when I needed it, or why it was important.

For example, I could say, “Hey, I need that report by Monday.” But if I don’t explain why—if I don’t say, “Because this unlocks the next phase of the project, and without it, we’ll miss our launch deadline”—then it’s easy for the other person to deprioritize it.

People work better when they understand the impact of what they’re doing. Even my 10-year-old daughter—when I tell her to clean her room, her first response is, “Why?” But when I explain, “Because we have guests coming over,” it clicks for her. Adults are the same way.

So my best advice? Set clear expectations, give context, and explain why it matters. That way, you avoid the tendency to just take over and do it yourself.

Emma:
That’s a great point. Transparency, expectations, and deadlines—those are some of the core principles I like to work with. It really does prevent a lot of assumptions and chaos.

Zach:
Exactly. If you leave things vague, people make assumptions. And that’s where things go off the rails.

Adam:
That makes total sense. It’s like, if expectations aren’t clearly defined, then everybody’s just filling in the blanks on their own, which leads to frustration on all sides. I like that idea of setting expectations with the “why” behind them.

Now, let’s keep going on collaboration. We’ve talked about working with clients and working with teammates, but let’s talk about the tools we use. Obviously, there are a million different tools out there for managing collaboration—Slack, project management tools, emails, spreadsheets, all of it. But when it comes to Miruni, how does it fit into that workflow? How does it help smooth out some of these common collaboration issues?

Zach:
Yeah, that’s a great question, and it ties into a lot of what we’ve already been talking about. So Miruni has been around for a couple of years now as a capture tool, and that’s really been the foundation—helping teams capture data easily and consistently.

The reason that matters is because one of the biggest collaboration problems is just getting all the information you need in one place. If you don’t have the right context or the right details, collaboration falls apart. So up to this point, Miruni has been a tool that eliminates the mental overhead of gathering that data. Whether it’s network traffic, console logs, screen recordings, or other necessary details, Miruni automatically collects it so that teams don’t have to manually piece it together.

But now, we’re evolving Miruni beyond just capture. The next phase is about automation—specifically, using AI to take action on the data we collect. A lot of collaboration issues don’t come from a lack of tools; they come from inefficiencies in how work is handed off and completed. So we’re looking at how we can remove the manual labor involved in executing these tasks.

For example, imagine a client sends a request: “I need this section of my site updated to include a new product.” Instead of manually interpreting that request, updating the site, checking for errors, and sending it back for review, Miruni will automate those steps directly in the system. It understands the request, makes the update, and provides a structured review process.

That’s really where we’re heading—automating away the repetitive work so that teams can focus on high-value collaboration instead of just managing tasks.

Emma:
I love that phrase—“automate away.” I think everything should be automated. Well, maybe not everything, but a lot of things! I’m just going to start saying “automate away” from now on.

Zach:
Haha, I love that! And honestly, that’s my soapbox when it comes to AI. There’s a lot of fear around AI taking over jobs, but I see it as removing the boring, repetitive tasks so that we can focus on what we actually want to do. AI shouldn’t replace creative work or strategic thinking—it should eliminate the stuff that just wastes time. That’s the goal of Miruni.

Adam:
Yeah, that makes sense. I have this idea in my head that there’s this “communication matrix”—where different types of communication work better for different things. Like, text is good for some things, audio is good for others, images and video help with context. And I feel like Miruni is kind of taking all of those different modalities and adding AI to automate the parts we don’t want to do.

Zach:
That’s a great way to put it. And it really comes down to efficiency—if we can eliminate back-and-forth emails, unnecessary meetings, and redundant steps, teams can spend more time actually building and less time managing logistics.

Emma:
Okay, so let’s say someone isn’t using Miruni. What are they missing out on? If they’re still relying on spreadsheets, email threads, and manual processes, what’s the biggest benefit they’re not getting?

Zach:
I’m going to hit people where it hurts—their revenue.

The reality is that inefficiencies cost money. I was talking to an agency owner just the other day, and he told me he spends dozens of hours a month on manual tasks that don’t add value. If you can cut that down to just a couple of hours, that’s a massive impact—not just in terms of time saved, but in terms of revenue potential.

Beyond the financial side, it’s also about quality of life. If you’re drowning in spreadsheets and email chains just to keep a project on track, that’s exhausting. Miruni removes a lot of that friction and lets teams focus on the work that actually matters.

Emma:
That makes sense. So, can you give us a little peek into Miruni’s roadmap? What new features are coming out that you’re most excited about?

Zach:
Absolutely! So, we’re in the middle of a big pivot right now. The first major focus is deep automation—taking what used to be a manual workflow and making it as seamless as possible.

One of the biggest upcoming features is AI-powered updates. Right now, if a client requests a website change, there’s a whole process—reviewing the request, making the edit, verifying that it doesn’t break anything, and then pushing it live. We’re automating all of that. Miruni will be able to intelligently interpret change requests, execute them in real-time, and provide a structured approval process so that nothing goes live without review.

Another area we’re looking at is SEO optimization. Agencies get these long SEO reports from tools like SEMrush or HubSpot, listing out 25 different things they need to fix. Right now, that requires manual work—going in and updating meta tags, adding keywords, tweaking page structures. But with Miruni, we can take that report and apply those optimizations automatically. Again, it’s about removing the manual labor so teams can focus on strategy.

And long-term, we’re really looking at how we can evolve Miruni to not just assist in collaboration, but actively enhance it. We’re building more tools to help teams communicate better, reduce friction, and ultimately deliver better work.

Emma:
Wow. That’s a lot. So, just to recap—we’ve talked about managing client expectations, keeping projects on track, working with your team remotely, communicating effectively, and of course, automating away the stuff we don’t want to do.

This has been awesome. Thank you so much for sharing all of this with us, Zach. Where can people learn more about you and Miruni if they want to connect?

Zach:
Thanks so much for having me! You can check out Miruni at miruni.io, and you can email me directly at zach@miruni.io. I’m also on LinkedIn, so feel free to connect there. I love talking to people about collaboration, workflow efficiency, and, of course, how we can help solve these problems.

Emma:
Awesome. And just one quick disclaimer—before anyone comes at me, I love spreadsheets! I made a spreadsheet just today to plan a trip with my friends. I just asked about them, that’s all!

Adam:
Haha! Maybe you could have used AI for that.

Zach:
Funny enough, my wife is a CPA and absolutely loves Excel, so I completely understand!

Adam:
Well, Zach, thank you so much for joining us today. This has been an incredible conversation about collaboration, setting expectations, and making sure we’re working efficiently. We appreciate you sharing your insights with us.

And to everyone listening, thanks for joining us for another Woo Biz Chat. We hope you found this discussion valuable, and we’ll see you next time on Do the Woo!

Emma:
Talk to you all soon!