This page is in English because English is the official language of Arke. We believe it is extremely important to start from the Italian market—not only because of the market opportunity but also because it is something we deeply care about. At the same time, we also believe it is essential to demonstrate that a company born in Italy, like Arke, has the potential to become an international leader. For this reason, from the very beginning, we have aimed to build a team of people with international ambition and a strong drive to make an impact locally. For us, the perfect combination.

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In the beginning, there was ERP. Endlessly Repeating Perils or, as someone dares to say, Enterprise Resource Planning software. The thing that haunts your dreams and makes you curse technology. Yep, that was me. My first big career move involved modernizing an old ERP system. It was like being asked to polish a turd. No matter how much I shined it up, it was still a turd. But I didn’t quit. I stuck with it. For reasons I still don’t fully understand, I managed to get through it. And when I finally came out the other side, I made a vow: Never again. Never will I touch an ERP. I probably threw in some dramatic hand gestures for extra flair.

Fast forward five years. The ERP was done, and I was surprised at my own perseverance. It was like I had somehow completed a triathlon without collapsing at the finish line. Sure, it wasn’t pretty, but I was alive, and, for some reason, still employed. But you know what? I was done with ERPs. Never again. I’d seen enough fields of digital cattle to last a lifetime.

Then came the next chapter. For the next 13 years, I went on a grand adventure—a smorgasbord of digital delights. I worked on mobile websites. I scraped websites like they were the last piece of cake at a party. I built a platform to test APIs because why not (and why yes, some may ask). I even founded a startup, which, plot twist, was acquired by another company (don’t worry, I’m humble about it). It was a rollercoaster of success, failure, and drinking too much coffee. Espresso, double shot, no sugar to be specific.

But here’s the thing: as much fun as all that was, at some point, I started feeling like I was helping a bunch of entitled, tech-obsessed, donut-buying, app-loving spoiled brats. My work was primarily focused on software that helped people buy donuts on their shiny new phones or spent an inordinate amount of time optimizing software testing processes—for people who were already too lazy to test anything in the first place. Oh, joy. Real life-changing stuff right there, right?

And then, there was Patrick. Ah, Patrick, my former co-founder and friend of a lifetime. Back when we were dreaming big, he made me promise something. He told me, in a tone reserved for people who are about to get serious: "Your next gig needs to be something that helps real people. Not people buying overpriced coffee on their apps or whittling away their workdays with pointless software improvements. Help the people who actually need it."

A noble sentiment, Patrick. But what the hell did that even mean? Real people? Does he mean like, The People? Or actual humans who are not on TikTok every five minutes? By the way, TikTok wasn’t a thing back then, such a better world it was.

I’ll cut this short. After 13 years of doing literally anything other than ERPs, I’ve joined a startup that’s building... wait for it... an ERP. And not just any ERP—nope, we’re building an ERP for small and medium-sized manufacturing companies in 2024.

“Why on Earth would you willingly go back to that hellhole?” I can hear you asking. Well, settle in because I’m about to drop some knowledge.

See, all the fancy software I worked on? It didn’t help the little guy. It helped people who had too much time on their hands and too much disposable income. It didn’t really change lives—it just made the spoiled masses a bit more comfortable. But now, this—this ERP—this is different. This is about making the lives of people who’ve been left out of the digital transformation easier. It’s about empowering small and medium-sized manufacturing companies, the unsung heroes of the economy, who don’t have the luxury of investing in a top-tier, billion-dollar software solution.

Real people—people who wake up at the crack of dawn, have real work to do, and need a system that actually helps them. No "multi-step multi-channel workflow optimization." A system that makes their lives easier.

Arke, the startup I’m working with, is all about comfort. Real comfort for real people. Forget the glitzy app that promises you’ll have a fantastically expensive sticker with the face of your cat on it delivered in 20 minutes—this is software that helps people manage inventory, track orders, and streamline their operations so they can do what they do best: make stuff. The kind of stuff that keeps the world running. And yes, if that means building an ERP from scratch in 2024, then damn it, I’m in.

So here I am, back in ERP land. Sure, I could’ve kept playing around with trendy apps that help people buy avocado toasts online (why is this even a thing), but here I am, making good on a promise I made years ago. Patrick was right—I wanted to do something that actually made a difference for the real people.

I can picture Patrick raising an eyebrow. OK, I’m not stopping wars, nor helping old ladies cross the street (mmm… startup idea?), yet I will feel more than proud if I can help a fraction of the working class dream bigger.

To anyone who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, let me tell you: you absolutely can. And sometimes those tricks just involve going back to something you thought you were done with—like ERPs—but this time, it’s for a much better reason.