Greg Kogan
gkogan.co · Personal blog · on HN since 2014
Greg Kogan is a marketing consultant who writes about customer acquisition, email copy, consulting, and running simple software systems.
What HN saysHN commenters praise him as a regular contributor and excellent consultant, and call his consulting-growth piece a gold mine.
31HN people shared it
12linked it in comments
232stories submitted
5.0Kstory points
4 months agolast shared
2014people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Stop Asking Me to “Sign Up” (2014)4 people · 479 points · first shared 2014 · 272 comments on HN
- 2Plain emails not only save time but work better (2016)3 people · 401 points · first shared 2016 · 117 comments on HN
- 3How I Find Consulting Clients3 people · 355 points · first shared 2015 · 42 comments on HN
- 4When AWS, Azure, or GCP Becomes the Competition3 people · 346 points · first shared 2019 · 89 comments on HN
- 5Simple Systems Have Less Downtime (2020)3 people · 315 points · first shared 2020 · 210 comments on HN
- 6Do It in Jeans First3 people · 96 points · first shared 2025 · 109 comments on HN
- 7I changed my mind about product-led growth3 people · 6 points · first shared 2021 · discussion on HN
- 8Removing stuff is never obvious yet often better2 people · 472 points · first shared 2024 · 190 comments on HN
- 9To Get More Replies, Say Less (2017)2 people · 413 points · first shared 2017 · 122 comments on HN
- 10Looks vs. Results: My ugly ad got 150% more clicks than a professional design2 people · 178 points · first shared 2021 · 123 comments on HN
- 11This Ugly Ad Saved My Business2 people · 72 points · first shared 2014 · 11 comments on HN
- 12Say less in your emails, get more replies (2017)2 people · 47 points · first shared 2024 · 51 comments on HN
- 13Bad Words for Describing Software Products2 people · 27 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 14Year in Review: My Fifth Year of Consulting2 people · 8 points · first shared 2018 · discussion on HN
- 15Signups Shmainups2 people · 8 points · first shared 2022 · 1 comments on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
barry-cotter · 2020-10-13
Obviously you know a great deal about your own situation than any internet commenter but perhaps you’re taking the wrong lesson from this?
Reading your story I would not be surprised if the problem was that the side projects strategy has topped out for the current level of impressiveness and publicity. I bet increasing either would improve results. If you look at Greg Kogan’s website[1] since he’s a consultant too there’s nothing about any impressive educational background. It’s all research and case studies. Blowing your own trumpet more, whether by speaking at meetups and conferences or creating digital artifacts that anyone can find on your website and then telling ten people who might be interested and might share might help. Both of these help more as they are performed more consistently, obviously.
[1] https://www.gkogan.co/
gk1 · 2017-05-01
SEEKING WORK Remote (Based in Baltimore, potentially available for Q3+ only)
I help software companies meet customer acquisition goals. Need faster growth, more revenue, greater ROI, lower acquisition costs, higher retention, or more efficient marketing operations? I can help.
Past and present clients include a multinational telecom company and software companies in the following verticals: IoT, devops monitoring, web development, data engineering (ETL), recurring billing, enterprise data science, mobile ad-tech, ecommerce, and enterprise databases.
Far more technical than your typical marketer; I deploy code and can talk shop with engineers and data scientists just as well as with marketers.
Think you could use my help? Send me an email (greg[at]gkogan.co) or read more at http://www.gkogan.co.
yoavz · 2020-08-21
The original inspiration and example featured on the website was from a blog post on cold "welcome" email copy: https://www.gkogan.co/blog/increase-reply-rates/.
I'd love to test it on more marketing emails, or content marketing -- these seem to be the two applications with the most direct ROI.
nlh · 2020-08-16
Nice post as always Greg.
To those who aren't familiar, gk1 is a regular HN commenter / contributor and excellent consultant who knows his stuff.
This piece is also a gold mine of info for those looking to grow their consulting practices:
https://www.gkogan.co/blog/consulting-advice/
(no current affiliation other than being a former client via Scalyr)
Bluestein · 2024-08-01
Just a heads up: The ...
- https://www.gkogan.co/question-for-saas-trial-users/
... URL linked to from "Take your welcome or onboarding email — [start here] if you don’t have one" is 404ing for me.-
Pandabob · 2021-12-14
Oh wow, gk1 now works[0] as the VP or marketing at pinecone. That's news for me. The product seems interesting as well.
[0]: https://www.gkogan.co/blog/pinecone/
joegahona · 2021-01-03
The author argues in the comments that it's statistically significant: https://www.gkogan.co/blog/looks-vs-results/?r=2#comment-5206984325
kirillzubovsky · 2020-05-21
Most browsers are switching to hiding the full page url from the user anyhow, so although the parameters are making the url ugly, it's not exactly breaking the UX.
The url is not the UX anymore.
This is why building "the obvious next steps" [1] is such an important concept. This is also why apps like Facebook or Pinterest have been so successful. Within this new UX, users are not looking to leave, they just want to find more information that is relevant to them.
[1] https://www.gkogan.co/blog/ridiculously-obvious-next-step/
mey · 2019-10-28
Wish the rss/atom was better represented, rather than only existing in metadata on your site. I must be a dying breed, but I refuse to sign up for email newsletters. I refuse to hand over that much of my attention.
Edit: https://www.gkogan.co/feed.xml
ezekg · 2018-11-16
Agreed. You will find better info on how to sell to enterprise customers in one of the links from the article: https://www.gkogan.co/case-studies/gravitational/
lkgrindy · 2018-04-12
This feels very derivative of an article (https://www.gkogan.co/blog/how-i-learned-to-get-consulting-leads/) that I’ve seen reposted a couple times.
Brajeshwar · 2026-04-19
The gist is to mine your network, and the best is when you can have contacts as champions in your clients’ companies. Here are a few good readings;
- [20 Lessons for Attracting, Signing, and Retaining Great Clients](https://www.theforcingfunction.com/blog/service-business)([archive](ht…
- [How to be a Consultant, a Freelancer, or an Independent Contractor](https://jacquesmattheij.com/be-consultant/) ([archive](https://archive.is/iun16))
- [How to Find Consulting Clients](https://www.gkogan.co/blog/how-i-learned-to-get-consulting-leads/) ([archive](https://archive.is/STvcv))
- [The Strategic Independent](https://tomcritchlow.com/strategy/) ([archive](https://archive.is/O5OKC))
- [A retiring consultant’s advice on consultants](https://www.economist.com/business/2023/08/17/a-retiring-consultants-a… ([archive](https://archive.is/Slqwj))
- [How to Find Consulting Clients](https://chrisachard.com/how-to-find-consulting-clients)([archive](http…