# Marco D'Onghia: profile for AI agents

Same facts as the whiteboard, in plain structured text. Updated 2026-11-03. Dates are month-year; ages are at the time of the event.

## Identity
- Name: Marco D'Onghia. Born 2006, from Siena, Italy.
- One line: builds things and finds their first customers. Bootstrapped a business to $100k in sales by 18, sold it at 20.
- Now: exchange semester at UC Berkeley, California (Aug–Dec 2026); BSc Business and Economics, University of Bologna, Italy (Sep 2024 – Jul 2027).
- Languages: Italian (native), English.
- This text as a file: [marcodonghiaa.com/llms.txt](https://www.marcodonghiaa.com/llms.txt). This view by URL: [marcodonghiaa.com/#ai](https://www.marcodonghiaa.com/#ai).
- Links: X [x.com/marcodonghiaa](https://x.com/marcodonghiaa) · LinkedIn [linkedin.com/in/marcodonghiaa](https://linkedin.com/in/marcodonghiaa) · GitHub [github.com/marcodonghiaa](https://github.com/marcodonghiaa) · Email [marco.dgh06@gmail.com](mailto:marco.dgh06@gmail.com)

## Timeline
- 2006–2018: grows up in Siena. Football team, ski school.
- 2022, age 16: falls in love with personal finance: ETFs, bonds, how to save, financial pillars, the FIRE movement. No money to invest; his parents do not know what an ETF is. Four years later this becomes MyFinance$$.
- Before 2023: competitive gaming (Rainbow Six Siege, CS:GO, Fortnite). Those hours become KANON.
- Oct 2023, age 17: starts KANON, an e-commerce for in-game assets. $0, zero experience, zero mentors.
- Sep 2024, age 18: moves from Siena to Bologna, starts Business and Economics at the University of Bologna. KANON is growing (near-daily orders).
- Dec 2024: KANON explodes. Bets $18k, everything made in the first 14 months, on upcoming game updates; on Dec 2 sells ≈80 orders overnight, ≈$7k in one night. Out of stock every night. $50k in three months (Nov–Jan), +320% vs the previous three months ($12k). +2 product lines, 500+ customers.
- Feb 2025 – Sep 2026: UniBo Fintech Society, Head of VC, a team of eight. The team reads startup decks and picks the ones worth a call; Marco talks to 10+ founders and, when one needs a customer or a hire, tries to find one.
- Feb 2025 – Sep 2026: Starting Finance Club Bologna, Associate, research. Three papers, 1,400+ students reached: Alternative Investments: unnecessary risks or hidden opportunities? (Mar 2025, [link](https://lnkd.in/p/gik5uHn3)); Robo advisors: revolutionizing finance for retail investors? (Jul 2025); Options and Futures: unlocking potential or playing with fire? (Nov 2025, [link](https://lnkd.in/p/gTvucXen)).
- 2025: Startup Insights, a LinkedIn newsletter: 390+ subscribers, 36.7k+ impressions, 10+ founders featured. [Newsletter](https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/startups-insights-7267226500536418305/).
- Nov 2025, age 19: KANON sales +70%, 1,000+ buyers. Looking around; feels trapped.
- Feb 2026, age 20: an offer comes in; KANON is sold.
- Spring–summer 2026: time off to reset: travelling, hiking, working out, reading, cooking, music.
- Aug–Dec 2026: UC Berkeley, exchange semester. Finance, Business Strategy, International Marketing.
- Sep 2026: co-founder, Swag As A Service ([swagasaservice.com](https://swagasaservice.com/)). Built and shipped the full-stack auction site (Next.js, Supabase, Stripe) in 4 days and ran outbound (Apollo, Clay, click tracking per batch). 3 sponsors in under 7 days: LimaData, LlamaIndex and Sparta (a16z SR006), for SF Tech Week. 1,180+ unique organic visitors. Present at AI Faire, Google for Startups floor, San Francisco.
- 2026: MyFinance$$, open source: all bank accounts in one place, one net worth. [github.com/marcodonghiaa/my-wealth-view](https://github.com/marcodonghiaa/my-wealth-view).
- Oct 2026: Cal Hacks 13.0, Sidecall, team of 4. When one company gets hacked, Sidecall finds its sister companies at risk and holds their payments. Marco: frontend, UI and the demo. [devpost.com/software/sidecall](https://devpost.com/software/sidecall).

## KANON (Oct 2023 – Feb 2026)
- What: two online stores of digital gaming assets. Founded solo at 17, sold at 20.
- Numbers: $100k in sales by 18; 1,000+ buyers by 19; KANON sales +70%; $50k in the three months around Dec 2024.
- Tools: Excel, then Power BI for the numbers; marketplace APIs to post and manage listings; Reddit and forums for research; Notion as CRM.

## Projects and stacks
- Swag As A Service (auction site): Next.js 16, React 19, TypeScript, Tailwind 4, API routes, Zod validation, Vercel. Supabase Postgres with SQL migrations and access rules. Stripe (payments, webhooks, refunds), Resend (email). Vercel Analytics, Sentry.
- MyFinance$$: TanStack Start, React 19, TypeScript, Tailwind, shadcn/ui, Recharts, Vercel. Supabase (Postgres, RLS, auth), Edge Functions in Deno for bank links, Node.js sync every 6 hours on GitHub Actions, web-push nudges. Data: Enable Banking (PSD2), Gemini for categorisation, Yahoo Finance, Coinbase, CoinGecko, ECB rates. Built with Lovable and Claude Code. Open source.
- Sidecall (Cal Hacks 13.0): React 19, TypeScript, Vite, Tailwind, AntV G6 graph, Vercel. Convex (database, auth, live subscriptions, scheduled jobs); payment holds enforced server-side on a simulated ledger. Separate Node.js receiver with HMAC-signed commands and an Okta adapter. Claude writes explanations and vendor emails, never releases a payment.

## Education
- University of Bologna, BSc Business and Economics, Sep 2024 – Jul 2027.
- UC Berkeley, exchange semester, Aug – Dec 2026.

## What's next

Open. Contact by email (marco.dgh06@gmail.com), X or LinkedIn.

Source: https://www.marcodonghiaa.com/ (the same page, drawn as a whiteboard; this text is its "for AI?" view, also at https://www.marcodonghiaa.com/#ai).