Since 1999 · My own projects and a few hand-picked clients

Work with me and you work with a person. Not a department.

Illustrated portrait of Marco Gianfreda — **Marco Gianfreda**Founder of MakeZone

My name is Marco Gianfreda. I've been building digital projects since 1999: e-commerce, multilingual editorial portals, management platforms, systems with artificial intelligence built in. Almost all of them are mine: I founded them, paid for them and kept them going.

I've been around for half a century. In a world that moves as fast as technology, I could almost call myself an old man. But it's exactly that passion for keeping up with change, every day, for more than twenty-five years, that gives me perspective: I've seen plenty of trends come and go, and I've learned to spot the ones that stay.

When I take on a digital project end to end, I don't apply a method I picked up on a course: I do for you what I've already done for myself.

Let's talk → My story ↓

1999

the first project online

10+

platforms live today

countries where the projects are online

230,000

visits a day, roughly, across the network's sites

Why a person and not an agency

Four things that change for you.

You talk to the person who decides and does the work.

No account manager reporting to a developer who reports to someone else. One person, from the idea to launch.

I introduce myself through my own projects.

I've worked with plenty of clients, but I'd rather be judged on what I built for myself: the money invested was mine, and so were the results.

Many years also means many mistakes.

I know where things break because they broke on me. That's experience you can't buy.

I'll also tell you not to do it.

If the project doesn't hold up, I say so up front, and you save months. Someone who bills by the hour has no reason to tell you.

The story, in order

From 1999 to today.

1999
IBC Internet Business Consulting
My first web agency, between Lecce, Milan and Lugano. Inside it was one of the first Italian editorial CMSs, back when “content management” wasn't even a phrase yet, running collepasso.it.
2001
Milan
I move to Milan to develop a more advanced CMS. I learn how a software product gets built inside a structured company.
2001–2003
Mobile services and SEO
Along come suonerieesuonerie.it, schede-cellulari.it, sms-pronti.com. The lever is SEO, back when almost nobody used it: top of Google, with advertising costs close to zero.
2003
The editorial network
From services to making money from content: pubblicitaonline.it, then ricettepercucinare.com, frasi-amore.it and the others. airdave.it comes in through an acquisition and joins canzoni-mp3.net, a project of mine: together they reach 150,000 visits a day. Add the 50,000 from ricettepercucinare.com and roughly 30,000 from the other sites, and the network gets to about 230,000 visits a day. Administration, sales, SEO and data: all in-house.
2006
laterradipuglia.it joins the network
I acquire the domain as part of the editorial network: for ten years it's a content portal.
2013
One cycle closes, a bigger one opens
A major publishing group is about to acquire ricettepercucinare.com. The deal falls through, and I choose to double down: I turn it into MyItalian.Recipes and take it worldwide, in five languages. Today that means over 1,000 step-by-step recipes and 100,000 photos, with the articles that go with them. Part of the rest of the network is still online, with a new job: bringing people to the shop.
2016
La Terra di Puglia becomes an e-commerce business
From publishing to product, starting with €1,000 in capital. Then my own network of suppliers, own-brand products, the B2B channel. Today it sells the best of Puglia in Italy and abroad, to consumers and to businesses.
2024
MakeZone: AI put to work
Not slides about artificial intelligence: systems running in production on my own shop. A virtual assistant on PrestaShop, matching products with recipes, dashboards for making decisions with data.

From 1999 to today I've never stopped, and I've never done just one thing. That's why I know how to run a digital project end to end: the code, the positioning, the money coming in and the money going out.

When things went wrong

Not everything went well. And that's a good thing.

Over the years I've shut projects down, changed direction and started over more than once. I won't go through them one by one: what matters is what they taught me, and what I now bring to every project.

Never depend on a single source.

A project hanging on one channel can lose almost everything in a few weeks. Today everything I build has more than one road to its customers.

Before starting, I look at who's at the table.

The right ideas with the wrong people don't hold up. That goes for partners, for suppliers, and even when the client is me.

Demand first, then the product.

A great idea nobody is waiting for costs years. First you check that someone wants it, then you build.

What I can do, in practice

Three areas, one person.

AI and automation

Claude API (Anthropic)OpenAIE-commerce assistantsSemantic searchPrompt engineeringProcess automationBusiness intelligenceDashboards

Digital and e-commerce

Project leadershipStrategic and technical SEOPrestaShopShopifyMagentoWordPressSymfonyCore Web VitalsAnalytics and Search ConsoleGoogle AdsBrevoB2B and B2C strategy

Infrastructure

ApachePHPMySQLFastAPIREST APIRedisTTFB optimisationCloudMobile apps

The numbers

No rounding up.

1999year of the first project online

230,000visits a day, roughly, across the network's sites

150,000visits a day on airdave.it and canzoni-mp3.net

50,000visits a day on ricettepercucinare.com

1,000+step-by-step recipes on MyItalian.Recipes, in 5 languages

100,000recipe photos, step by step

10+platforms live today

5countries where the projects are online

€1,000the capital La Terra di Puglia started with in 2016

How I work

Three rules.

Numbers first, then the project.

I look at the data you already have: Analytics, Search Console, orders, stock. If there isn't any, that's where we start.

We deliver in working pieces.

No six-month projects you only get to see at the end. Every piece goes live and gets measured.

You must be able to run it without me.

No locks, no made-up dependencies to keep the client tied in.

Who I work with

A few clients, hand-picked.

Over the years I've worked with many clients as a consultant: in Milan, in Lugano, in Puglia. But I'd rather be known for my own projects, because they're the most honest proof of how I work. And I'm not looking for lots of clients: I take on only a few, because I already have my own projects to run. Whoever works with me gets my real attention, not a place in the queue.

They want to grow.

They're not after a website to put away in a drawer, but a tool to take a step forward.

They have a modern view of the future.

They look at where their market is heading, not just at what it is today.

They believe in technology and in people.

They know technology only works when there are people who believe in it and put it to work.

Work with me and you work with a person. Not a department.

Four things that change for you.

You talk to the person who decides and does the work.

I introduce myself through my own projects.

Many years also means many mistakes.

I'll also tell you not to do it.

From 1999 to today.

IBC Internet Business Consulting

Milan

Mobile services and SEO

The editorial network

laterradipuglia.it joins the network

One cycle closes, a bigger one opens

La Terra di Puglia becomes an e-commerce business

MakeZone: AI put to work