Issue #141 - Klemens Strasser
Happy Monday, everyone!
We made it to Issue #141! Thank you to everyone who read last week’s issue ❤️
This is absolutely something I would say… if we actually did have an issue last week. But it’s been 665 days since Issue 140. I couldn’t let it get to 666, so here we are 😇
But why? Why did I abruptly stop Indie Dev Monday, and why am I starting it again now? Well, I’ll answer that…
I do the things I do because I enjoy them. I find personal value in them. I find future value in them. I find community value in them. So, story time…
At the height of the pandemic, the world felt very dark. Days and weeks blurred together, I was losing my sense of community, and I needed some indie dev inspiration. Indie Dev Monday became my solution. It gave me something to look forward to on Mondays. I got to talk to over 160 indie developers from all over the world and hear new perspectives on nearly everything. It changed my life and, surprisingly, it changed a few others’ lives too (which I never expected).
But then in 2023, I abruptly stopped the interviews. I half-tried to bring them back in 2024. So, why the stop-and-start?
Because I had a major life change. I took on too many things. The personal reasons behind Indie Dev Monday started shrinking compared to everything else I had going on, and it started to feel like work. And my goal is for none of my projects to feel like work. I never want to have to fight myself to keep doing them.
And that brings us to today. I’m able to manage my life and priorities much better now. Indie Dev Monday has the trifecta again: personal, future, and community value. And honestly, I’ve been fighting myself the past few months not to start it back up again. Also, let’s be real, today’s AI makes it way easier for me to get my thoughts out without stressing about spelling or grammar (which I hate). So the fun-to-friction ratio of Indie Dev Monday is officially much higher!
And with that…
WE ARE SO BACK!
Today’s issue features Klemens Strasser!
There are some developers whose work you can spot instantly. Not because they shout about it, but because everything they make feels unmistakably theirs. That’s always been the case for me with Klemens. Every time he ships something new, I find myself smiling at how thoughtful, warm, and human his apps feel. They make you want to slow down, explore, and genuinely appreciate the craft behind them.
I’ve wanted to feature Klemens in Indie Dev Monday for a long time, and after the 665 day break, it felt like the perfect moment. So here you go…
Today’s Spotlighted Indie Devs
📆 Today I’m featuring Klemens Strasser.
PocketShelf is a friendly, personal reading companion that helps you track what you’re reading, reflect on your books, and revisit what you’ve learned. The onboarding is one of the warmest I’ve ever experienced, and the focus on accessibility and personalization makes it feel welcoming from the very first screen. Whether you’re a casual reader or someone with a slightly out-of-control book backlog, PocketShelf turns your reading life into something you actually want to spend time with.
👉 Please make sure to follow them or support them anyway you can! 😇 I’m excited to share their indie dev stories.
Indie Dev
Klemens Strasser
Q&A
1) What is your name? Where do you live (city or general area)?
Hey, I’m Klemens and I live in Graz, Austria. Graz is Austria’s second-biggest city, has a lovely old town, and with Schloss Eggenberg, a beautiful castle with gardens that is just ten minutes away from me, where I can do my daily walks!
2) Introduce yourself. Education? Background? Main job? Interests outside of tech? Interests inside of tech?
I first went to a technical school (HTL Bulme) in Graz to learn electrical engineering and low-level programming. I then went on to study computer science at the Technical University of Graz, quickly finished my Bachelor’s and not so quickly finished my Master’s there.
I started tinkering with my own apps during my studies, worked as a developer at Flexibits and then Nuki, and can now call myself a full-time indie!
Outside of tech, I enjoy cycling, love spending time in nature, and spend unreasonable amounts of money on speciality coffee.
3) When did you start considering yourself an indie developer?
I think in 2014? It was right after the release of Elementary Minute, the first game that I actually released to the App Store. Two weeks into its release, a colleague at uni asked me how the game was doing. I said, “Fine? I make like 7€ a week off it”. And he said, “That’s amazing, so it pays for lunch once a week!”.
This conversation was when I first felt like an indie :D
4) What got you started/interested in creating your own applications outside of your “normal” job?
For me, the applications came before the “normal” job. But I need to go one step back first.
As a kid, I loved playing video games! I always told my mum that one day I wanted to build my own game. And that almost stayed a dream forever. I found out early how brutal the games industry can be and deemed it unreasonable to follow that dream. So I decided to go into the software industry instead. I went on to study computer science for this.
Then one day, I had the idea for my first game. And then for a second one. I thought I could learn Apple technologies to build out these projects. Because that way I could learn about how to build apps and thus, land an actually paying job as an iOS software engineer. And that is what actually happened. I released Elementary Minute, went on to win a Student Apple Design Award with it, met the people from Flexibits (Fantastical, Cardhop) at that WWDC, and landed my first job there.
I kept on building these games and apps on the side until eventually, they became my main source of income.
5) Art of Fauna - What was the spark behind Art of Fauna? Was there a moment when the idea clicked and you thought, “I need to make this”? Did you see this art somewhere a thought you wanted to showcase it in a neat way or were you looking specifically for this kind of art style?
I stupidly scrolled through Instagram and ran into the feed of the Biodiversity Heritage Library. They scan in very old books that were used for scientific research in the past and make them available for free to everybody. When I first saw the feed, I just couldn’t stop scrolling. These images were so gorgeous. I knew I had to build something around it.
Back then, I was playing a bunch of puzzle and cozy games. From Patterned to Alba: A Wildlife Adventure and A Short Hike. And I had the idea to use this dataset to build a puzzle game that emits the similar feeling to those cozy games.
6) Art of Fauna - Giving a portion of each purchase to selected wildlife conservation organizations is an amazing thing to do! Was this always your intention when making Art of Fauna? How do you choose which organization(s) to give to? Are there any unexpected hurdles or things that could be improved with giving a portion of proceeds like this?
Pretty much, yes. For once, I felt inspired by my friends at Broken Rules, who do something similar with their game Gibbon: Beyond the Trees. But the fact that I got these beautiful animal pictures for free played a huge part in it. I felt like I had to “compensate” for that. And I just loved the idea that drawing of animals from the 18th and 19th centuries can be used in a project today to play a tiny part in ensuring the preservation of those animals in the future.
As for choosing - For now, it was just organisations that I researched and felt like are doing an incredible job. But people can also suggest organisations in the app that they are passionate about!
One hurdle I wasn’t aware of at first is that I can claim my tax benefit only when supporting certain organisations in Austria. That definitely hasn’t stopped me from supporting others, but I just honestly would love if the rule wouldn’t apply.
7) Art of Fauna - What part of building Art of Fauna surprised you the most — either creatively or technically?
Definitely the whole mechanic of the two-sided puzzle game. In Art of Fauna, you can always switch between the traditional image puzzle and a text-based puzzle. This was done purely because I needed a way to make it accessible to VoiceOver users. The idea was that these users could use the text side to solve the puzzle with VoiceOver, while people with i.e. cognitive disabilities could stick to the image side.
But the surprising part was how valuable that was to everyone else. If you got stuck on the image side, you could flip to the text side and continue the puzzle there— or vice versa. And also, you could just stick to the text side if you want to learn more about an animal. By reading these facts over and over again, they engrave themselves into your brain. And I would have never expected this when first building the feature.
8) Pocket Shelf - Pocket Shelf’s welcome/onboarding is one of the most fun and friendliest I’ve ever gone through 😊 The first screen being accessibility settings really shows that you care (and all apps should do this). After that, the warm personalized feels and gaining a library card had me hooked. What are the requirements for yourself with onboarding? What is your process liked? Do you start with onboarding, end with onboarding, or shape it as the rest of the app shapes up?
First, thank you for saying that ❤️
But I usually start with building the core experience in an app, so what the user is doing most frequently in it. You would call it the moment-to-moment gameplay in a game, I guess? But for PocketShelf, it’s tracking your reading sessions, making notes, and adding books.
And after that works, I try to see what can be pulled into an onboarding to make this core experience better. If there isn’t anything, other than the accessibility settings, then the onboarding will be very short. But for PocketShelf, it makes sense to nudge the person into adding their first book - so that they can start tracking it right away.
And the library card, for example, is just a fun thing to add some personality and show them that we care about details and doing fun things.
10) Pocket Shelf - Do you have a favorite small detail or feature in Pocket Shelf that people might not notice right away?
I love that the signing of the PocketShelf membership card is not restricted to the name field. Like in a paper card, you can just scribble anywhere, anything on there. We won’t stop you.
And I have one on my to-do list that I still haven’t gotten around to building. When you first read a book in PocketShelf, it adds a little bookmark to the cover. But in the future, the cover should get a little scratch for every time you read it. First, this will look very subtle, but noticeable after a while. To make it feel like a real book that will look more and more used over time.
11) Design & Aesthetics - Your apps all share a really recognizable look and feel. How do you think about design and aesthetics when you’re starting something new? Do you have guiding principles, or is it more intuition and iteration?
Not a real guiding principle really for the aesthetics part at least. Here it’s just a lot of researching the domain, intuition, and then a ton of iterations.
For designing things (i.e. how they work), the only real principle that I have is spending a lot of time trying to nail the core experience or mechanic of each app. Like refining the puzzle mechanic in Art of Fauna. Making the learning view in Study Snacks feel right. Making adding and tracking books in PocketShelf feel seamless.
Everything around it then falls into place. I also iterate a lot there, but I also reuse a lot from old projects. There is only so much you can do to make i.e. a settings screen feel nice. And I learned that as long as the initial impression and the core mechanic of your app work really well, people are usually much more forgiving for the rest of it.
12) Indie Life - What has been the hardest part and the most fun part of being a (now full-time!) indie dev?
For me, it’s definitely hard to juggle my time between all my projects. Like Study Snacks still hasn’t gotten the Liquid Glass update, and other apps deserve some long-due love. And there are parts that I just don’t really like doing, from taxes to legal stuff and parts of marketing. But it’s just part of the deal.
I really enjoy the freedom the indie life brings. From being able to jump on a bike in the middle of the day to spending an unreasonable amount of time working on a tiny detail in an app. And that flexibility also allowed me to travel a lot. I’ve been to seven? conferences this year, plus WWDC. And doing this, meeting friends from all over the world regularly, helps with creativity, but also with the loneliness trap that you can fall into when working alone from home.
13) Indie Life - What’s next for Art of Fauna, Pocket Shelf, or any other projects you’re excited about? Anything you can share with us?
Last week I announced Art of Flora, which is a sister app to Art of Fauna, based on the plant world. It’s only going to be released in March, but people can pre-order it right now (Please do!)
As for PocketShelf, we want to finally add statistics, make an Apple Watch app and do more community based things. Many good things ahead!
Art of Fauna is getting extended with more puzzles and updates as well. The most exciting one here comes this week - A puzzle pack that I created together with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Archives in New York to inform people about the Hudson Canyon.
And then next year I want to give some older projects more love (especially Study Snacks, Subwords and Asymmetric) and maybe even dare to try a new app project! We will see.
14) Do you have any other indie devs that readers should follow / lookout for?
How many can I name here? :D I’m fortunate enough to have so many inspiring indie devs as my friends. Without their help and feedback, I definitely wouldn’t have achieved any of this.
I would start with my partner in crime for building PocketShelf - Frank Solleveld. But also my long-time friends Frederik Riedel, who builds One Sec, and Leo Mehlig of Structured. Hidde van der Ploeg and Pol Piella of Helm (and NowPlaying) fame. Everyone probably knows Jordi Bruin, Antoine van der Lee, and Mustafa Yusuf. And then everyone should know Seb “UIKit” Vidal and Nils Bernschneider, who build Duet and Lengo respectively.
Sofia, Cesár, Bobby, Danijela, Dani, Rob, Chris, Chris, Ryan, Andy, Monika… I could go on here for a while. But that’s the amazing thing with our community. It overflows with kind and inspiring people. I love it <3
Thank you to everybody who made it to this footer! You either spent the time to read or took the effort to scroll 😊
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