Viktor Grünwald
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Code is no longer the bottleneck. Understanding is.

VickeTwenty years in sales taught me to find out what a business actually needs before anyone writes a line of code. Now I build that software myself: fast, with AI, and without losing the plot.I build software for people who have a job to do and no time for manuals. If it needs a training session, I haven’t understood you yet.I build with AI every day: models, skills, MCP servers, and I know where it still needs a human. Twenty years of sales is how I find out what to build.

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Viktor Grünwald in a dark kandura and sunglasses, standing in front of a hotel entrance in Dubai.
Dubai. That’s me.

Who’s asking?

Start a project

VickeWhy the switch? Because this is my job. The same product means something different to the CEO who pays for it, to the person who works with it every day, and to the developer who builds it. I explain it to each of them in their own language. Pick yours, and the whole page answers you.

Different products. Different audiences. Different languages.

A selection. I’ve built 15 to 20 products of every size; these show the range. Each one speaks its users’ language, so each panel keeps its own look. Pick who’s asking at the top and the answers change.

CEO asks “What does it cost, and what does it save?”

User asks “Will this make my day easier?”

Developer asks “How is it built?”

The EVU-Tool homepage at evutool.de, in its own design.

Replaces Word, Excel, paper and isolated tools with one system for operations, resources, dispatching, safety management and administration. Services operators usually buy in are built in: PZB data analysis, the Annex 5 TfV certificate, EBA notifications.

Built over hundreds of hours with railway staff who use it every day, and it still is: they test new parts live and I keep building on what they tell me. Drivers see their roster on their phone and log shifts themselves, no training needed. When a medical certificate expires, deployment approval is withdrawn automatically.

54 permissions in 12 groups, enforced server-side and printable for audits. Multi-tenant for any number of subcontractors. Integrations with DB InfraGO, SSO, payroll export and .ics. Missing values show as “not recorded”, never as 0.

All-in-one operations software for German railway operating companies. For railway operators in Germany.

Built inside a railway operating company, from its own pain: the binder with the fitness certificates and the Excel list with the deadlines.

evutool.de

EVU-Tool

The FORMHAUS homepage at formhaus.ae, in its own design.

Free for the building: a QR plate on every machine explains what it trains and how to set it up. No app, no account. Coaches pay no percentage on client payments and stay free up to 15 active clients.

Before writing code I asked coaches in the UAE what their current coaching software was missing, and built around their answers. Several features exist in no other coaching software. Coaches run classes, packages, memberships and payments from their phone, with their own logo on every client screen.

Two connected products: a coach attaches exercises to the exact machine the client is using. Privacy by design: the building never sees an individual’s training, and scans are counted without IP or cookie.

Software for the people who run gyms and coach in them, in Dubai. For gym operators and coaches in Dubai.

Named after the Maschinenhaus gym in Meschede, where a trainer explains every machine. In Dubai almost every tower has a gym, and almost none has staff.

formhaus.ae

FORMHAUS

The German Quality Dubai homepage at germanquality.ae, in its own design.

200+ listings in 18 categories across the UAE. Revenue comes from premium memberships bundled with behind-the-scenes video and founder-podcast productions.

Expats find a doctor, lawyer, tradesman or school by category or on a map, in German or English, on the web or in the iOS and Android app. Anyone can suggest a business.

Bilingual DE/EN, map search, a verified seal, native apps, and community submissions with a review step.

The directory of German-run businesses and German professionals in the UAE. For German expats in the UAE.

Built by an expat for the question every newcomer asks: who can I trust here?

germanquality.ae

German Quality Dubai

The Creatox homepage at creatox.ae, in its own design.

Four services under one brand: studio booking across 8 locations, a mobile studio, an editing service and rent-a-host. Creatox Editor sells editing at fixed prices, from $149 with 48-hour delivery.

Daily talks with the client about how uploads and communication should flow, then with the editors themselves: how clients should reach them, and how they show changes to a cut. Creators pick a package, upload raw footage that resumes if the connection drops, and get a delivery-ready cut back.

Marketplace mechanics: editors in two tiers, and Champions need at least 5 verified ratings and a 4.5 average. Only ratings from paid, completed orders count. Built with Astro, bilingual.

The UAE’s home for content creators: studios, mobile studios, editing, hosts. For content creators in the UAE.

Building for creators means speaking creator: fast, visual, no bureaucracy.

creatox.ae

Creatox

The Rankbet homepage at rankbet.de, in its own design.

Free, no stakes, positioned against weekly tip games like Kicktipp. Groups for friends, colleagues and family, for the World Cup, Bundesliga, Premier League and Champions League.

Before kick-off you predict the final table or the full tournament bracket. No weekly duty: miss two matchdays and you are still in. Live ranking after every match.

Own scoring model: close predictions score, far misses cost, so consistency beats one lucky hit. Predictions lock at the first kick-off. Magic-link login, DE/EN.

A football prediction game where you predict the whole competition, not single matches. For football fans in Germany.

You can change your prediction as often as you like until kick-off. The product rewards changing your mind when the facts change.

rankbet.de

Rankbet

How I work. How I got here.

No CV. Seven panels, from the sales floor to building with AI.

  1. Managing director “What’s the margin?”

    Warehouse “When does it ship?”

    Lab “Does it meet spec?”

    Supplier “Full pallet or not?”

    Production “Which batch first?”

    Sales

    20+ years

    Consulting and selling. Every group spoke its own language, and I translated between all of them.

  2. An esports tournament hall in Eindhoven. I am standing behind my players at their screens.

    Esports team management

    In parallel

    In my 20s and 30s I managed esports teams and players: flights, hotels, transport, tournament entries, so they could focus on competing. Taxi drivers, hotel staff, organisers, young players: every one needs a different conversation. Organisations paid me for it. My gamertag from those years, V1cke, is the V1 on this site.

  3. Curiosity

    Always

    I never lost it. New things, new experiences, new angles on things I already know. When I get the chance to see something familiar through someone else’s eyes, I check whether I should change how I think or work. Routine was never my thing.

  4. Retraining

    Then

    A formal web developer training. I went in wanting a quiet job with code. I came out knowing my place is between people and code.

  5. My desk at the start of my developer years: two monitors with code, a laptop, a lamp strip.

    Software developer

    ~5 years

    Building products for railway operators, gyms, expats, creators and football fans.

  6. Me at Düsseldorf airport, next to the Emirates check-in sign, leaving for Dubai.

    Düsseldorf → Dubai

    Then

    Packed up and moved.

  7. Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai: towers, a metro line, blue sky.

    AI-assisted development

    Now

    I build with AI, openly. The field roughly doubles every six months; I keep up by using it every day. Right now: EVU-Tool, FORMHAUS and an online SMS tool, in parallel.

Would I have decided the same in their place?

You don’t need someone who can write code. You need someone who understands your business well enough to know which code is worth writing.Software should fit the day of the person using it, not the other way round. That starts with listening.AI writes the code now. The craft has moved: to specifying, checking, and wiring tools together where the model leaves gaps.

Writing code is no longer the bottleneck. AI writes it as well as most of us, and many times faster. What is still slow, and what still decides whether a project works, is understanding. What does the person in front of me actually need? In their words, from what they know, with what they care about.

That is the skill twenty years of sales trained. I sat between managing directors and warehouse crews, labs and suppliers, and each of them spoke a different language. My job was to translate without losing anything on the way.

I build software the same way. I listen first, I ask the questions that feel too simple, and I check myself with one test: would I have decided the same in their place?

I don’t take a brief, disappear for a month and come back to tear down a third of what I built. I build with the people who will use it, almost every day. They test it while it grows, and I change it while the conversation is still fresh.

Then I build, with AI, and I say that openly. Knowing how to instruct it, where it needs help, and which tool, add-on or MCP server fills the gap is its own craft. The tools roughly double in capability every six months. The more I use them, the faster I get.

Developers are often described as quiet people who would rather not talk to customers. I’m the other kind. I think that combination is exactly what this moment needs.

Changed my mind.

When the facts change, I change. Newest first.

  1. Me, 2026 “FORMHAUS has two audiences, and both should pay for it.”

    Me, now “One side pays and gets the most value. The other side gets it free, and that makes the paid side easier to sell.”

    VickeBecause My business and development partners knew things I didn’t: one of the two groups is unlikely to pay well, at least for now. So I rebuilt the product around that. They changed my mind.

  2. Me, 2025 “React and Next.js can build anything. I don’t need another framework.”

    Me, now “Astro for everything that isn’t an app: content, findability, SEO.”

    VickeBecause A project where looks weren’t what mattered, but being found and letting the client edit their own content. Astro is very fast and made for that. React and Next.js stay for real software and SaaS.

  3. Me, 2024 “Claude and ChatGPT keep getting better on their own. That’s all the AI I need, and AI YouTube is entertainment.”

    Me, now “More than half the tools I use today I found through people on YouTube who showed and explained them.”

    VickeBecause Follow the right people and you learn a lot. You never stop widening how you understand your own work, and listening to others in the field is part of that.

  4. Me, 2021 “I’ll become a developer and finally work without people. Just me and the code.”

    Me, now “The space between people and code is exactly where I belong.”

    VickeBecause Within weeks I missed the contact. And already in my retraining I saw colleagues struggle to explain things and to ask the right questions. Speaking both languages, knowing what the client wants from the developer and the other way round, turned out to be my strength. It’s also why I can tell an AI precisely what someone needs.

  5. The saying “You learn from your own mistakes.”

    Me, always “I learn from other people’s mistakes, too.”

    VickeBecause I listen to people in my field who decide differently, know other things or took another path. Plenty of things I would have got wrong the first time, I got right because someone else got them wrong first.

How this site was built

It started with a ticket booking. I was buying tickets for my kid at a play park in Dubai and noticed their website: big, clear, a bit playful, made exactly for its audience. I could have booked and closed the tab. Curiosity made me look closer. When someone in my field builds something great, I take it as a push.

Built with Astro, Claude Code and the Impeccable design skill. Static, no tracking.

Have a project, want to collaborate, or interested in one of my products?

Talk to me.

In English or German.