EnterprisePricing
How the remote digital agency ‘It Just So Happens’ built one portal around the way they work with Canvas by Noloco
29
active projects
18
cities &
time zones
time zones
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“It's the first time since starting the business that I have entire visibility whilst being invisible."
About 'It Just So Happens'
It Just So Happens doesn't have employees, an office, or much interest in doing things the conventional way. It’s a digital agency where freelancers come together on different projects depending on what each client needs. That could mean anything from websites and social content to portals, SaaS platforms and brand work.
People work across 18 cities, and Taelon describes it a little like a Hollywood model: bring together the right crew for the job. Clients can dial the team up or down as their needs change, but behind that flexibility is a lot to keep track of. Different people join different projects, roles and permissions change, everyone needs different information, and work has to keep moving between clients, project managers and freelancers.
So when Taelon realized their tools couldn't keep up, she did what she always does: challenged the assumption that there had to be a standard way of doing things.
People work across 18 cities, and Taelon describes it a little like a Hollywood model: bring together the right crew for the job. Clients can dial the team up or down as their needs change, but behind that flexibility is a lot to keep track of. Different people join different projects, roles and permissions change, everyone needs different information, and work has to keep moving between clients, project managers and freelancers.
So when Taelon realized their tools couldn't keep up, she did what she always does: challenged the assumption that there had to be a standard way of doing things.
The Challenge: a business that flexible needed more than another tool
They grew 70% last year, in team and revenue, and suddenly there were too many projects, people, tools, permissions, handoffs and pieces of information to keep together.
“We're always talking about turning chaos into clarity. And our house was becoming chaotic."
They had tried everything: Basecamp, Trello, Notion, ClickUp, Plutio, Airtable-like approaches, more tools, integrations. None of them could keep up with the way her agency actually worked. Eventually, Taelon reached the point where she thought “Fine. We're gonna have to build our own thing.”
She gave her developer a nine-page brief and realized she wasn’t looking for one tool at all. She needed three equally important pieces: a CRM, a project management, and a freelancer management system. And that was only the start. Around those three pieces, she also needed role-specific views, knowledge sharing, team information, permissions and business data.
She started exploring what might be possible. Taelon said she first played around with Softr and initially thought it could work. But as she started comparing it against the brief, she realized it didn’t give her everything she wanted. It was when she came across Noloco that something clicked. Her reaction:
“Oh my god. This is literally what I'm talking about. This is my language”.
Agency OS was the first thing she’d seen that felt like it could actually work for the way they operated. She could take the pieces she liked, change what didn't fit, and shape the whole thing her way.
Suddenly, instead of compromising their unique, specific way of working to fit a piece of software, Taelon could build a portal around the way her business already worked.
She gave her developer a nine-page brief and realized she wasn’t looking for one tool at all. She needed three equally important pieces: a CRM, a project management, and a freelancer management system. And that was only the start. Around those three pieces, she also needed role-specific views, knowledge sharing, team information, permissions and business data.
She started exploring what might be possible. Taelon said she first played around with Softr and initially thought it could work. But as she started comparing it against the brief, she realized it didn’t give her everything she wanted. It was when she came across Noloco that something clicked. Her reaction:
“Oh my god. This is literally what I'm talking about. This is my language”.
Agency OS was the first thing she’d seen that felt like it could actually work for the way they operated. She could take the pieces she liked, change what didn't fit, and shape the whole thing her way.
Suddenly, instead of compromising their unique, specific way of working to fit a piece of software, Taelon could build a portal around the way her business already worked.
The Solution: Wonderland
Wonderland existed in Taelon's head long before it existed in the app. The idea came to her during a yoga session six years ago: Alice falling down the rabbit hole and arriving somewhere colorful, strange and full of possibility. That became the vision for the agency and eventually the name for the system that now runs it.
Wonderland is full of things that make It Just So Happens, well, It Just So Happens. There’s a Knowledge Nook instead of a dusty SOP library, and there’s an Alice AI avatar who handles the invoice inbox, naturally.
Underneath all the color and personality, it brings the practical stuff together too: CRM, project management, freelancer management, permissions, business data and, eventually, client portals.
And it doesn’t look the same for everyone. Taelon has her own Founder’s Focus dashboard, the portfolio director has his, and so do project leads, HR, data security and freelancers, with clients to come.
“With having that customization, you're giving everyone their version of their Wonderland.”
For Taelon, that means people can have a dashboard that matches how they work and process information: their own character, their own view, even their own way of looking at tasks.
Wonderland is full of things that make It Just So Happens, well, It Just So Happens. There’s a Knowledge Nook instead of a dusty SOP library, and there’s an Alice AI avatar who handles the invoice inbox, naturally.
Underneath all the color and personality, it brings the practical stuff together too: CRM, project management, freelancer management, permissions, business data and, eventually, client portals.
And it doesn’t look the same for everyone. Taelon has her own Founder’s Focus dashboard, the portfolio director has his, and so do project leads, HR, data security and freelancers, with clients to come.
“With having that customization, you're giving everyone their version of their Wonderland.”
For Taelon, that means people can have a dashboard that matches how they work and process information: their own character, their own view, even their own way of looking at tasks.
How Taelon built Wonderland with Canvas and Noloco's AI app builder
Taleon already had the vision; she knew how she wanted Wonderland to feel like. Nola helped her build it and Canvas gave her the freedom to make it hers.
“For me, Canvas was the feature that rocketed things to the next level of customization. I love custom building, but first I thought, I don’t know if that’s gonna take me too much time. But the fact that Nola was smashing things out…it’s fantastic”.
She approached Nola almost like a UX/UI designer, using Pinterest screenshots and website references and making herself a vision board to show what she had in mind. She particularly loved being able to work through her thoughts before asking it to build.“I love that you can plan first and then build. I really appreciate that workflow.”
She could see her ideas take shape, tweak them and keep adding to Wonderland herself, without having to hand every change over to a developer. And when something went wrong, Nola did something that particularly surprised her: it automatically raised a ticket with the engineering team. “I've never seen that before”.
How Taelon built Wonderland with Canvas and Noloco's AI app builder
Taleon already had the vision; she knew how she wanted Wonderland to feel like. Nola helped her build it and Canvas gave her the freedom to make it hers.
“For me, Canvas was the feature that rocketed things to the next level of customization. I love custom building, but first I thought, I don’t know if that’s gonna take me too much time. But the fact that Nola was smashing things out…it’s fantastic”.
She approached Nola almost like a UX/UI designer, using Pinterest screenshots and website references and making herself a vision board to show what she had in mind. She particularly loved being able to work through her thoughts before asking it to build.“I love that you can plan first and then build. I really appreciate that workflow.”
She could see her ideas take shape, tweak them and keep adding to Wonderland herself, without having to hand every change over to a developer. And when something went wrong, Nola did something that particularly surprised her: it automatically raised a ticket with the engineering team. “I've never seen that before”.
“Canvas rocketed things to the next level of customisation. First I thought it'd take me too much time, but the fact that Nola was smashing things out...it's fantastic."
The Impact: what's changed?
“It's the first time since starting the business that I have entire visibility whilst being invisible. I don't need to be interacting with every single person in the entire business, but I have full visibility of what's happening. And that’s particularly important when you’re working remotely and asynchronously”
With 21 projects happening at once, that distinction matters. She can see what's happening without having to be involved in every conversation or decision. “Wonderland now gives me the single source of truth”. She built Wonderland around that principle, including a clear escalation system.
If a project manager gets stuck, they can press a button to escalate to portfolio director. The Portfolio director gets it, it appears on his task on his dashboard, and then he has the ability to escalate it to Taelon, if needed. “We’re able to catch any blocker quicker than before, instead of them getting lost in Slack threads”.
It might sound like a small workflow, but it’s elevated Taelon’s role. “It’s got me out of the trenches. I know so many founders get constantly sucked into working IN the business instead of ON the business - this has given me the ability to do just that”.
And there’s a pretty good test of what that means in practice: it’s given her something she hasn’t had in years: a holiday she might actually take.“It’s the first time I’m planning not to check Slack. Wonderland gives me a lot more confidence to be able to see, are there any situations of risk that I need to know about? So I can have a holiday and not have to spend days catching up on every single detail when I come back."
Wonderland is also helping different parts of the team work together. The data security lead now coordinates with the accountant through linked dashboards, so the accountant can finally see why they’re paying for the tools they use. “Now he goes, ‘Oh, I understand why we’re paying that’.”
With 21 projects happening at once, that distinction matters. She can see what's happening without having to be involved in every conversation or decision. “Wonderland now gives me the single source of truth”. She built Wonderland around that principle, including a clear escalation system.
If a project manager gets stuck, they can press a button to escalate to portfolio director. The Portfolio director gets it, it appears on his task on his dashboard, and then he has the ability to escalate it to Taelon, if needed. “We’re able to catch any blocker quicker than before, instead of them getting lost in Slack threads”.
It might sound like a small workflow, but it’s elevated Taelon’s role. “It’s got me out of the trenches. I know so many founders get constantly sucked into working IN the business instead of ON the business - this has given me the ability to do just that”.
And there’s a pretty good test of what that means in practice: it’s given her something she hasn’t had in years: a holiday she might actually take.“It’s the first time I’m planning not to check Slack. Wonderland gives me a lot more confidence to be able to see, are there any situations of risk that I need to know about? So I can have a holiday and not have to spend days catching up on every single detail when I come back."
Wonderland is also helping different parts of the team work together. The data security lead now coordinates with the accountant through linked dashboards, so the accountant can finally see why they’re paying for the tools they use. “Now he goes, ‘Oh, I understand why we’re paying that’.”
“I can have a holiday and not have to spend days catching up on every single detail when I come back."
Fun fact
“Basically, I am now obsessed with dashboards, and I can’t stop. I literally can’t stop. In my office, I’ve got a large white wall behind my desk, and I wanna get a projector and then have a dashboard on them all”.
