Federico Martelli

I'm Federico we raised €5M in 36 hours, the fastest pre-seed in Europe and joined Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe 2026 shortly after I'm starting on X to share what I've been building and what I've learned along the way but first, a bit about me 27, Italian, CEO of Forgis, based in Zurich 4 months after founding, we had 5 term sheets from international funds won the ABB Startup Challenge against hundreds of startups and got deployed inside Fortune 500 plants all while obsessing over one question: why is the West handing its industrial base to China, and what can actually be done about it I've been writing about this on LinkedIn for the past year 10,000 followers, 800K monthly impressions turns out a lot of people in manufacturing, automation and deep tech care about this stuff I'm here to build the same thing on X expect real insights on manufacturing, industrial AI, robotics, reshoring and the geopolitics of production no fluff, no startup motivation content just first principles thinking from someone actually building in this space if that's your world, follow along

Europe doesn't have a technology problem it has a speed problem rigor gets confused with caution slow gets called "methodical" careful gets called "strategic" meanwhile the deployment decisions that actually matter are being made in Shenzhen on a Tuesday while we're still in the committee meeting

@RohanShips status and cash flow compound differently. one gets you credibility, the other gets you optionality.

Building a "startup" is a status symbol. Building a "business" is a cash flow machine. The first gets you likes on LinkedIn, the second gets you freedom. Choose the second.

@IlirAliu_ integration timelines doubling every quarter while the robot sits in a pilot forever is the one that kills the most real deployments

Things we’ve normalized in robotics that feel like robbery: >$50K+ robot arms need $20K integrators to move >“Pilot programs” that never become production >ROS consultants charging €300/hr to fix a launch file >Paying for a trade show booth to sell to other vendors >$500 conference tickets to watch vendor demos >Simulation licenses that cost more than the hardware >“Open source” frameworks with €80K enterprise support contracts >Integration timelines that double every quarter >Safety certifications that take longer than product development >Buying a robot and then paying for the software to run it >APIs that only work with their proprietary hardware >Demo videos shot at 0.5x speed >$200K humanoids that can fold one type of towel >VARs taking 40% margins to do nothing >Research papers with no reproducible results >“Strategic partnerships” that are just logo swaps What did I forget?​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ [btw, I love the pic 🫶… ] —— Weekly robotics and AI insights. Subscribe free: 22astronauts.com

@coreyganim the compounding starts slow and then it's the only system you trust. institutional knowledge that builds itself is underrated infrastructure.

The personal knowledge base build, in 60 seconds: Total setup: 45 minutes this weekend. Then it compounds forever. 1. 5 minutes: Setup Create 3 folders: raw/, wiki/, outputs/. Drop a CLAUDE.md schema file in the root. Done. 2. 10 minutes: Dump Copy-paste articles, notes, screenshots, meeting transcripts into raw/. Don't rename. Don't organize. 3. 30 minutes: Let the AI build Point Claude at the folder. "Read everything in raw/. Compile a wiki following CLAUDE.md rules. Create INDEX.md first." Walk away. Come back to organized articles, [[linked]] topics, and a searchable index. 4. Ongoing: The compounding loop Ask questions. Save answers back to raw/. Every query makes the next answer better. 5. Monthly: Health check Tell the AI to flag contradictions, find unexplained topics, and suggest 3 new articles to fill gaps. The system gets smarter the longer you use it. Day 1 it's basic. Day 90 it's a company asset nobody else has.

@adriankuleszo the loudest voices in any space are rarely the busiest operators. signal lives in the work, not the thread.

A designer I spoke to last week said it went two years really quiet and then everything hit all at once. Signed four enterprise clients, all referrals, all running at the same time. And now he's turning down work. This is the same week I saw three different threads on X about how designers are finished and AI replaced everyone. The people with the biggest audiences in this space are often the furthest from the actual market and they're optimizing for engagement, not for clients. The industry isn't dying. It's just that the people who are busy don't have time to post about it. They just keep their heads down and work.

@andrewkornuta photography didn't kill painters, it redefined what painting was for. the same shift is happening to software authorship right now.

A lot of software developers are reacting to AI like portrait painters reacting to photography. The old craft doesn't vanish but it loses status. Code generation is cheap. Developers protecting the sanctity of manual authorship are dead as disco although that corpse is still moving. The scarce skill is no longer typing every line by hand. It is knowing what to build, how to constrain it, how to test it, and when it is safe to ship. The future belongs to those who can direct machines and verify outputs.

@realbrianmoran persistent systems beat one-off prompts every time. the founders winning built context, not conversations.

“AI doesn't work” ↳ Stop using it for one-off questions - the founders winning build persistent, trained systems that reflect how they actually operate ↳ Start with one workflow - pick one weekly task and automate it before touching anything else. ↳ Articulate what makes you good at your job - if you can't explain it, you're at the mercy of whatever AI thinks the right answer is ↳ Build context over time - the best operators feed AI their frameworks, voice, and processes ↳ Test it like a hire - give it a real task, see how it performs, then train it to do better next time. ↳ Open the keys to your whole team - build something useful for more than one person in your org ↳ Listen to your frontline team - your customer support people sometimes have better ideas than you do. ↳ Stay humble and curious - pick up lessons from everywhere, not just your industry. ↳ Crank out new stuff - if it's just helping you do what you were doing a year ago, you're getting left in the dust

@profithuntercfo revenue going up while margin stays unknown is the most common way founders mistake motion for progress

Signs your business is in trouble before the bank account is: - Payroll feels scary on the 14th - You're taking on clients you don't want just to fill cash gaps - You stopped looking at the numbers because you're scared of what you'll see - You're personally lending money to the business and calling it "temporary" - You don't know your margin, you just know revenue is up

@emonuxui yeah man

@fel1de That’s the reality of automation in most places retrofitting.

walked into a factory in Germany last week €800K robot in the corner running at 50% uptime cable zip-tied to a ceiling pipe because there's no cable tray nobody designed this building for a robot they just squeezed one in and called it automation

@jonbrosio overhead is a tax on speed. small and decisive beats large and coordinated when the tools close the execution gap.

A single person with: Clear thinking, a strong offer, and consistent execution can out-earn a 10-person agency with overhead, meetings, and consensus paralysis. Small isn't a disadvantage anymore It's leverage

@cjc when tools equalize output, judgment on what to build and for whom becomes the only real differentiator left

Work, Speed & Judgment We are surrounded by tools designed to do our work for us, yet the pressure to outwork the next person has never been higher. One reason might be the collapse of traditional moats. In the past, you could rely on switching costs or a proprietary social graph to protect your business. Today, AI has made it possible for a small team to replicate complex features in a weekend. When features are commoditized, speed becomes the only visible variable. If you look at the 996 culture, it’s often a reaction to this lack of differentiation. If everyone has the same coding agents, the logical conclusion for many is that the winner will simply be the one who keeps the engine running the longest. But in practice, sheer output per hour isn't a strategy. You can ship a thousand features, but if they don't solve the right problem for the right customer, you're just creating a bloated product experience. I’ve always preferred a leaner, more intentional approach to hiring and building. When you have these powerful tools, your primary job shifts from producer to editor. It’s not just about doing things fast, but doing them in the right order to maximize impact. You shouldn't be building for every customer. Going deep with the right high-growth customer is more valuable than spending the same time with a stagnant enterprise, even if they pay the same today. It seems to me that while everyone else is racing to see who can work the most hours, the real advantage belongs to those who realize that an AI-driven world doesn't need more volume, it needs better judgment.

@JesseTinsley exclusivity on a deal that size is a serious milestone. the pipeline compounds fast when the track record starts speaking for itself.

Just got into exclusivity on a multi Billion dollar merger. Pretty good start to the weekend. Also closing 2 - 8 figure acquisitions in the next week or two more to come on that front. Still buying companies if anyone is interested in selling DM me.

@alexandersok ingredients are commoditized. taste and judgment are the new defensibility. the chef analogy is exactly right.

Every startup ceo I know is having an existential crisis. Don’t worry. Just keep building, learning, and finding the sweet spot. The moat is no longer the ability to be a great purveyor, everyone has the same common ingredients now. Be more like a world class chef. Take these ingredients and apply taste, creativity, judgement and execution to make delicious things.

@TheGeorgePu when founders have leverage, the terms shift. revenue share without equity is just the market repricing control.

A startup just raised $360M from General Catalyst. Zero shares given up. Not a loan. Not equity. A revenue share. The VC built a whole new fund for it. All because the company is profitable from the start. The VC 'community' just had to invent a product. A product that isn't venture capital. Because the founders they want aren't taking their calls. I bootstrapped for a reason. I never wanted a boss. VCs spent 20 years selling 'partnership.' Now they're selling capital with no vote. Funny how that works when the leverage flips.

@09x88hq API dependency without a proprietary layer underneath is just reselling someone else's infrastructure with extra steps

Most “AI founders” today aren’t building companies — they’re stress-testing APIs. If your entire product breaks when one API changes pricing, you don’t have a startup. You have a dependen

@pat_baranowski the website is the first sales rep every prospect encounters. letting it underperform while investing everywhere else upstream is a structural mistake.

I've worked with a company that raised $18M after a full rebrand and site redesign. I've seen conversion rates improve over 40% after a redesign that fixed structure, not just aesthetics. The website is rarely treated as the growth lever it actually is, until it becomes the obvious thing holding everything else back. A weak website doesn't just hurt conversions. It undermines every other investment you're making.

@deangraziosi the mental model precedes the outcome. assets and leverage are frameworks before they are financial positions.

Most people aren’t broke because of money. They’re broke because of how they think. Rich people think in assets and leverage. Broke people think in hours and effort.

@geoffreywoo workflow ownership, proprietary feedback loops, and owned distribution. everything else is a temporary position, not a moat.

founders keep asking what survives when models get better. simple answer: the businesses that own a workflow customers cant rip out, a feedback loop competitors cant cheaply copy, and distribution that doesnt depend on being this week’s clever wrapper. everything else is negotiating with time.

@soloceoai productivity theater is the most dangerous kind because it feels exactly like real work while you're doing it

You moved 14 cards on Notion this week. You updated your roadmap twice. You restructured the database schema "for scale." Revenue: same. Customers: same. Notion is not a customer.

@brenden_delarua spend is a vanity metric. return on that spend is the only number that matters in the conversation.

Why do marketers try to show their experience by saying “I’ve spent X on ads” Okay dawg, what was the incremental contribution margin… Also cite your sources and give a couple references. “I’ve spent $100m on meta ads” “I’ve also been fired by every brand I’ve ever worked with” Not that impressive.