Galen King

Latest — 26 May 2026

I’m a pedant and a stickler—and I’m going to keep using em dashes

Reflecting on my high school in New Zealand, I don’t recall having a particularly strong grammar education in my English classes. In fact, I learned more about English grammar from learning German as an exchange student in Switzerland! My love for punctuation came more from my love of typography

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“IDEO on this”—how to improve AI outputs by “verbifying” frameworks and principles

Early in my AI journey, I started telling my agents to “OODA on this” or “OODA review”. I’ve since found it to be incredibly powerful and easy to expand this to things like “IDEO on this” or “do x and y, IDEO’ing as you go”. Telling it to

The daily tension founders face with working in, on, and talking about their business

I’m pretty good at alternating between the first two but I struggle to consistently talk about my work in a way that will amplify my message and build connections with the people I have the best opportunity to help and serve.

Reflections on 24 years from freelancer through building one of the first Shopify studios in the world through burnout and back to soloist

I’ve been reflecting on how ultimately none of this matters—how good we are at our craft, who we can serve and help, the processes we develop, or the results—if we can’t master sales and marketing and storytelling.

Your website probably doesn’t really matter

What matters is your ability to tell a good story, build connections, and engage on a human level.

Helping you connect the dots to unlock hidden revenue on Shopify

It’s humbling when we come to a point in our career where we realize that the skills we have that were once deeply specialized are now offered by thousands—if not tens of thousands—of others. I am a designer and design thinker at heart—and I love the

Building the dream agency

I never quite got there. The process became the work. I prefer to work in an organization where the work is the work. Where I can help people and make a genuine impact. I’m achieving that as a soloist again. For now.

How can you expect to produce beauty and harmony if your marketing team isn’t “singing from the same song sheet”?

In order to maximize marketing performance, you need to reach the right audience at the right time with the right message.

If your ROAS is slipping, it’s not too late to optimize brand positioning, content, and storytelling!

Imagine you have 5 seconds to capture visitors’ attention—and convert them from “I’ve never heard of this company” to “I love them so much I’ll buy whatever they’re selling!”

#UnderdogChallenge—my 23-year journey from soloist to agency principal and back in under 500 words

After nearly 23 years, I’m back on the tools, working directly with amazing clients—designing and building beautiful, elegant, highly functional Shopify stores—learning and growing and achieving things I’d forgotten I was capable of.

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