Felix Lu is the co-founder and CPTO of Fr8labs, a modern operating system designed to help freight forwarders better manage their internal and accounting operations. They recently secured $1.5M to streamline freight forwarding through digital solutions.

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👋🏼 How would you explain your job to someone outside tech?

It's like being the head chef in the kitchen, ensuring the existing items on the menu are prepared according to exact standards and at the same time thinking about how to continuously revamp the menu to ensure that we stay relevant, ensuring customers are excited about the experience of eating at our restaurant.

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🧐 What's something about you or your job that would surprise us?

I consider staring into space and not doing anything as a part of working because this state of inactivity allows me, allows my mind to wander and perhaps make connections.

It seems like we are doing nothing but it's actually very crucial for the process of ideating or coming up with new ideas.

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🏆 What has been the biggest highlight of your career so far?

The biggest highlight of my career so far has been my transition from a finance background to becoming proficient in developing full-stack applications.

Over the past year and a half to two years, driven by necessity and the demands of my team, I have successfully learned to create both proof-of-concept experiments and production-ready features for our customers.

This achievement was significantly aided by AI platforms, and it marked a very fulfilling inflection point in my career.

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🔍 What's a startup trend or space you're watching this year?‍

I'm fascinated by AI-driven Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) and their potential.

The progress from tools like Copilot to Cursor and now Bolt.new is impressive. Despite some issues, this area shows great promise and could revolutionize how product managers work in the future.

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💼 What advice would you give someone starting out in your industry?

Be curious about everything in life because you will never imagine how cross disciplinary knowledge really helps you to be so much more creative in problem solving.

Lessons learned in another subject could be solutions for the problems that you are facing in an indirect way. Shell solved a drilling problem when an engineer was sipping his smoothie in the restaurant with a flexi-straw. Go figure.

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‍🗣 What's one thing you can keep talking about for hours?

Motor cars, racing, engines etc.

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🎥 What's your favorite movie/TV show?

Blade Runner 2049? Feels like every scene in the movie can be a poster on my wall. Outrageously good cinematography

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🍨 What's your go-to ice cream flavor?‍

Roasted Pistachio from Creamier Handcrafted Ice Cream and Coffee