Felix Krause, creator of fastlane

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Speaking

You can reach me easily via Twitter and email contact@krausefx.com, or use the form below.

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Thank you

All the projects I’ve worked on wouldn’t have been possible without the environment I was in. In particular, the many people who believed in me, and supported me in the process, mentoring, helping and pushing me. This list is far from complete - however I wanted to still highlight some. In no particular order. Also, I have excluded my family from this list, as they are by far the most important support system, but also to preserve their privacy here.

Austria

• Helge: After my internship with Knallgrau in Vienna, the team referred me to Toursprung, the company that ran MapToolKit, Bikemap and a few other websites. First an internship, then my first iPhone app using Titanium, and later a native rewrite of the Bikemap app. After more than 13 years, we still spend time together, following our tradition of meeting after a new haircut. Helge has been such an important mentor for me, helping me in all aspects of life, and also never shies away from telling me his true opinion, even if it’s sometimes hard to hear.
• Peter Eich: Having worked with Peter during the Toursprung times, I also spent time with him later on, exploring startup ideas together, as well as getting advice on next steps. Peter always said “Felix, I want to buy stock of you, the person, so that I can always get a percentage of your future success”. Peter taught me how to make the work processes playful & artistic, and looking at problems in completely new angles.
• Peter Steinberger: I met Peter through the Vienna local iOS meetup cocoaheads_at, he already was a big inspiration for all of us there. Peter was always hacking on his MacBook on some PDF rendering software by himself with some fresh Club Mate at Metalab. During my first time attending an iOS conference in Frankfurt I remember how a big group of people formed around him, everybody wanted to meet him. Peter’s little PDF rendering projects grew into a successful business, which was sold 11 years later. I’m lucky to call Peter a close friend and mentor, and a big inspiration in what one can achieve with hard work and dedication.
• Andreas Klinger: Met through the Austrian startup community, and had one of the most insightful conversations of my life at MuseumsQuartier in Vienna: I told Andreas about how SunApps works, and he immediately responded: “Wait, those are 3 products: the actual app, the automatic deployments of mobile apps, and the remote config CMS for mobile apps”. And boy, was he right. This was the first time I realized this, which later allowed me to move the automation aspect of SunApps into its own product, later known as this little tool called fastlane. Over the years, Andreas & I always stayed in touch, meeting in San Francisco, New York, Vienna, Berlin, talking about life planning, visa, taxes and investments.
• Sebastian Mayr: Staying under the radar. Our ritual: walks & talks. Started out during college in the UK where Sebastian and I would stroll around and plan life. Some really good inputs & planning, and some not so good questions like “Why would you build fastlane as a tool, it’s just a task launcher”, but all in all, it worked out perfectly. We continued our tradition in New York, walking over the famous bridges, overseeing the New York skyline, knowing we achieved all the things we set out to do. And now still doing our walks, through audio calls, while everyone walks wherever they are. Talking about everything, from home residency, to taxes, to negotiating, to chilla villa.
• Reini: Staying under the radar, my #1 Telegram friend even though we live in the same city. Met in high school, and got closer every year. I’m always fascinated by how Reini just understands things. Everything from software, to technology (even random fun facts about how ACs work under the hood). I truly admire his approach of building software, and solving problems, and doing what he believes is right. Every time I need help, Reini is available and happy to support me. Every company that gets to hire Reini is extremely lucky.
• Dominik Weber: Literally met in Kindergarten, and actually stayed friends to this day. Both moved to Vienna, both ended up working in tech, both like the same computer games. Very lucky to have something only very few people in the world get to experience: a friendship that lasts a whole life
• Michael Stifter: When I was visiting the HTL Wiener Neustadt, Michael presented the Robotics class that’s offered in third class there. I remember my heart beat rising, I was unrealistically excited. At that moment I knew I wanted to go to this school, and wanted to join the Robotics classes. Michael supported me from day 1: Back then Robotics was still pretty new at the school, as well as the competitions, and Michael pushed to get the best level of support we could get, enabling us to participate at 2 (!) robotics world competitions, one in Singapore, and one in Hawaii, representing Austria in RoboSoccer, and Botball. It’s so impressive to see just how much robotics has grown under the leadership of Michael ever since I left, having their own lab at the school now, and being internationally well known for all the successes they’ve had already.
• Dieter Rappold & Bodi: I did my first internship at the age of 15 at Knallgrau in Vienna, which ended up being the foundation for the rest of my career. During the 4 weeks, Bodinator was a close mentor who helped me arrive in the real-life-working-world. I also very much remember the magical macOS times back then Bodinator introduced me to, where Mac apps were still so beautiful, like QuickSilver. Also, Monkey Island! Learning helma js, Javascript on the server way before it was cool.
• Christian Reber & Sebastian Kreutzberger: Sebastian recruited me for 6 Wunderkinder (for a full-time job, until I had to admit I was still in school), I moved to Berlin for 3 months to work on Wunderlist & Wunderkit. Also, this was my first job in English. I truly enjoyed building those pixel-perfect pre iOS 7 app designs, custom drawRect: renderings of all UI components.
• Florian Gschwandtner: I met Florian rather late in my career, but I’m very thankful I did: I can count on Florian on supporting me, but most importantly give honest & direct feedback, even if it may not be what I want to hear in that moment. I am very thankful for all the advice he has given me so far, and I’m sure our paths will cross again in the future.

USA

• Hemal: It all started with a Twitter DM slide back in 2015, and became one of my most important friendships: Hemal enabled me to move to San Francisco, helped grow fastlane to reach all major tech companies, worked closely together at R&D at Root, and to this day is an essential part of all brainstorming & planning happening in my life. Hemal became my go-to person for most areas in my life, and grew way beyond just working together. Together, we’ve planned, built and shipped dozens of projects, and always push each other to strive for more. I can always trust Hemal to be completely honest & direct with me. He was also the person who gave me my first Pedalo.
• Josh Liebowitz: Josh and I worked closely together in the fastlane and fastlane.ci days. One of the highlights was a 2 week trip to Taipei. Basically I learned about the Google office there in Taipei 101, we asked our manager if we can work from there for some time, he confirmed, and we booked the flight tickets + Airbnb and had the best time: coworking & coliving together on the new fastlane.ci project. Josh taught me so much about empathy, how to better understand the other person’s view, and how to be patient when interacting with large companies and dealing with their processes.
• Sommer Panage: Every time I talk with Sommer I leave the conversation with a lot of extra energy and motivation. Starting from how she structures her life around setting goals, to also balancing this with work and other obligations. Over the last few years also, she’s been my go-to person to talk about accessibility, and I’m very thankful that she helps me, and the whole developer community becoming better at being more inclusive in our work and in our personal lives.
• Alex Koren: Met through Conrad on my first Thanksgiving in the US back in 2015, met multiple times a week for the free dinner at Twitter HQ while Alex was bootstrapping his new company. Alex helped me get adjusted to the US, taught me how to socialize and how to better communicate and better present ideas and thoughts.
• Cliff Weitzman: Cliff cold-messaged me when we both still lived in SF, instantly got drawn to his way of seeing life, his energy, and then randomly happen to be in Niseko, Japan (of all places) skiing at the same time, meeting up there. Cliff always pushes me, in the most supportive way, and not just at Gold’s gym on Venice Beach.
• Tiff & Alex Kern: I met TZ through my role at Product Hunt, and she was one of my first friends in the Bay Area. I’m always impressed by how fast and efficient TZ comes up with new ideas, builds up a whole team around a product and ships it. Watching this makes it look so easy, even though it’s extremely difficult. One of her first actions when I arrived in SF was connecting me with the fine folks at Interact, where I joined a year later, met Alex Kern, who back then talked a whole lot about the blockchain, way before it was cool.
• Soroush: Soroush is one of those friends who for a long time lived in the same city as me (NYC), however we only hung out there once. Instead we choose to spend time together in Melbourne, Tokyo, Paris, Milan, Paris, Rome, Spain, San Jose at conferences and random trips. Soroush has this energy that’s hard to describe. He taught me a lot about travel, food (baked goods), and how to make best use of a 3.5 hours layover in Paris (hint: it’s traveling to Paris city center, to go to the best croissant place, get a croissant, and try to make it back in time for the next flight)
• Sarah: Met randomly through friends, and actually started working at Google around the same time. Sarah taught me a lot about understanding other people’s views, taking the time to really understand the underlying problems, miscommunications, or misalignments, and working together with the other person, or group, to find a solution where everybody wins. She helped me better understand many social issues I haven’t considered before, and how to better communicate with people who have different views than me.

Online

• Pieter Levels (aka levelsio): Having been extremely inspired by his first pushes towards Digital Nomads & owning very little things (before it was cool), I was there when he first started NomadList as a Google Sheet. We met IRL all over the place, first in Bali, then Los Angeles, later in the city he grew up in, and also in my home in Austria, and yes, I even met his parents and took the secret elevator. Peter has always been a huge inspiration for me: his approach on just getting things down, doing the things he believes are right. Even if it doesn’t please everyone, he follows his heart and his mission. His approach to how he builds products and how he designs his life very much resonates with me. He is truly unique as in not caring what others think life should be like, and does what his gut tells him.
• Orta: First interactions all through Twitter, I was fanboying really hard the first time Orta visited Vienna and I got a chance to meet him. Later we spent way more time together, at random conferences across the globe, but mostly in New York, where orta shared lots of really good life advice (and some not-so-good ones like treating one’s email inbox like a “stream”). Orta was such a crucial part of shaping the iOS community, as well as the iOS developer tools, and was a big inspiration for me, helping me shape fastlane to what it is.
• NeoNacho: #yatusabes, one of the original “Fastlane Buben”, and past member of the fastlane support hotline. We’ve always interacted on Twitter, and then started spending more time IRL at conferences (London, Berlin, SF, Spain, All Star Cafe, Tokyo and more). Boris, understanding every little piece of the Apple developer toolset, does not shy back from adding some sparks and fun into it all - with the best example being FixCode (Xcode plugin), hacked together on the rooftops of San Francisco.

Fitness & Health

• Niklas: Arriving back in Austria, and being in lockdown in 2020 I looked for a good fitness coach, and found Niklas. He taught me a lot on how to optimize my routines and my workouts, and very much simplified my fitness life. Also, learnt a ton about interior design!
• Faron: On my first PT session with Faron I remember distinctly how he casually mentioned “Oh, and you’re gonna track all your meals, I’m gonna give you the macros”. I’ve tracked macros in the past, it’s a lot of work, and wasn’t too excited about this, so after a few minutes I asked “Do all your clients track macros?” and he coldly responded with “The ones that see results do!”. From that moment on I knew he was the real deal. Only a few months later, I couldn’t have been happier with the progress. Faron taught me how to incorporate a good diet and my workout plan into my day to day life, including social obligations in NYC. Faron was also one of the first people in my life who pushed me, but at the same time always empathized the other side of making sure to have a balanced life, and also taking time to relax and enjoy.
• Brandon: My coach in San Francisco, who helped me find my first fitness goals, aspire for something bigger, and really destroying the body, reaching the max.

You can reach me easily via Twitter and email contact@krausefx.com, or use the form below.

WeAreDevelopers photos by Tamás Künsztler