Bruno Giordano

Sharing a few projects and reflections from 2025

January 14, 2026

Happy New Year! I* hope you enjoyed the holidays and recharged your batteries for this new year.* One of the things I enjoy most at the end of the year, besides eating, is sitting down and reflecting on everything that has happened in my life or in the environment connected to my life. It has been a special year from different perspectives and relatively good, considering that my health and that of my loved ones are very good.

Last year, I had to work a lot, mainly at night once the “series time” with my partner was over (see the end for recommendations), and on weekends. This year I truly learned to prioritize, to say no to people and things, and to scroll less, largely thanks to the book Essentialism by Greg McKeown. It was also the year I got into writing, and though I haven’t been consistent, I promise a better 2026!

There are things to share, especially regarding the last 6 months of 2025. My goal was to write it all in this post, but as we get into the content, I realize it will be impossible as there are projects or ideas that deserve their own space. So we will dedicate this space to briefly commenting on some of the projects and experiments carried out that I am sure will mark 2026.

2025 was also my first year writing code in Python. It was good to learn this way because when I started experimenting with n8n, I felt I was coming to it with a solid base. I decided to build some automations for personal use, so I installed n8n locally using Docker, but after a few weeks I moved it to Google Cloud because I needed the automations running even when my laptop was off. I tried “Oracle Cloud Always Free,” but availability is limited. I could have used “Oracle Pay as you Go,” but Google felt more reliable.

Home Assistant: Invoices and Events

Fede and I use a shared Google Calendar, which works well, but things still slip through the cracks. So I used n8n to create a bot that sends us reminders three times a week about what’s coming up in the next 7 days. n8n extracts events and ChatGPT prepares a summary and sends it to a shared Telegram channel. Another flow extracts utility bill amounts from my inbox and shares them in the same channel.

We didn’t save hours, but it was great for practicing and understanding the tool’s potential so we can build more powerful things in the future. Just these days I was thinking about adding a third monthly workflow to share updates on how our ETF investments are doing (even if that goes a bit against the Bogleheads philosophy of “invest and forget”).

Telegram chatbot

During that same reflection on how to improve the automation, I went in two directions:

  • I added more context for the LLM so that when it analyzes our calendar events, the output feels more personalized.

  • I explored the idea of having real conversations in the same Telegram channel and asking the chatbot (well, up to that point it wasn’t really a chatbot… just a workflow) to create, edit, or delete events, or answer any other questions about the calendar. I also added a tool that lets it run Google searches, so if the event is something like “dinner at home with friends,” I can ask it for recipe ideas while taking our preferences and intolerances into account.

AI Voice Agent

Before flying to Naples for Christmas, I met a colleague who owns a solar panel company. He and his partner launched a luxury car business, they were struggling to answer calls from potential buyers so I built them an AI Voice Agent using n8n and ElevenLabs. It connects to their calendar to book visits and uses Google Search and Google Sheets for car inventory questions.

Websites

All year long I kept building websites. The first half of the year was more on-and-off, but from September to December I was shipping projects almost every week.

I genuinely love creating websites, the same way I love creating anything that goes from 0 to 1 (sorry Peter Thiel for stealing the expression). From nothing to something. From an idea to a real product that works, ideally one that also generates revenue.

Whenever I can, I like meeting the founders in person, understanding their culture and their vision, and then building from that place. I try to make sure the website feels aligned with who they are, not just “a nice site,” but an extension of their story.

A few of the projects I enjoyed most:

Cliv Gioielli

An e-commerce site for a store that resells luxury watches, based in the province of Naples. This one probably took the most time, but I’m really happy with the result. It’s not live yet, but it should launch in the next few weeks.

CasaBianca Apartments****

A BnB in the historic center of Naples reached out to me to build their website. The goal was simple: bring all the apartments they manage into one place, with the right links out to Airbnb, Booking, and the rest. It turned out great. I’ll leave the website here for anyone planning a trip to Naples and looking for a comfortable, well-located stay.

Napoli Bag****

A luggage storage spot near Piazza Garibaldi (the central station). They asked me for an e-commerce site with online booking, and later the option to add cross-sell products (suitcases, souvenirs, etc.).

Books & Blogs

Blogs:

I would say that if I decided to start a blog last year, it is largely thanks to this series of bloggers who have shown me the power of it:

Thanks for sharing so much knowledge for free. I hope one day I can be as good as you (and not only at writing).

Series Recommendations

My recommendations come from what I’ve enjoyed most last year: Game of Thrones, Succession and The White Lotus.

We’ve reached the end of this article. I know nobody is reading this (at least not all the way to the end), but if you did, thank you. I hope one day I can repay you in some way.

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