I’m Gonçalo.

My journey started long before launching a company. At 14 I was already curious about cybersecurity, always breaking things apart to understand how they worked. That curiosity pushed me into countless projects, experiments and side hustles. Most of them failed - but each one taught me something new and sharpened my mindset as a builder.

What drives me isn’t recognition. It’s the raw process of building real things, learning through every stumble, and sharing that truth. As someone who started young, I’ve leaned both on mentors and on my own stubborn determination. Reflection became my most powerful tool - and writing it all down makes this path feel a little less lonely.

The idea for ROOTKey (NOTCyberSec at the time) sparked in 2022, while I was still at university - literally working from a bathroom-turned-data-center in an apartment in Felgueiras. Together with my co-founder, Luís Costa, we moved into our first co-working space and kept going.

ROOTKey is more than a project - it’s a mission. Most companies can restore their systems. Few can prove their data is still trustworthy. That’s the problem we work on every day: making sure organizations can trust their data, especially after something goes wrong.

What you’ll find here
- Honest reflections on founding and running a startup, the messy bits included.
- Insights on leadership, resilience and seeing beyond the hype.
- Stories from ROOTKey’s journey, from apartment beginnings to international stages.

Who this is for
- Young founders who feel like they’re figuring everything out solo.
- Curious minds looking for a grounded, human view on startup life.
- Anyone who appreciates unvarnished honesty in the pursuit of building something meaningful.