Welcome back to our "Build in Public" series! In previous posts, we've shared our journey from product pivots to AI partnerships. Today, we're diving into the month that changed everything: our first 30 days at Unicorn Factory Lisbon, where we went from secretive startup to LinkedIn oversharing champions in record time.

Welcome to the Intensity Engine

On April 11th, we officially entered Unicorn Factory Lisbon alongside 49 other ambitious startups, each convinced they were building the next big thing. The selection process had been competitive: applications, interviews, and the usual startup song-and-dance of convincing experienced investors that our vision was both ambitious and achievable.

What we didn't anticipate was the sheer intensity of what followed.

Within 30 days, we had:

28 meetings with mentors

7 events ranging from fireside chats to pitch workshops

20 meetings with prospect design partners

10 meetings with onboarded design partners

Selected our software development partner

Committed to delivering our alpha platform in 8 weeks

Oh, and somewhere in there, we accidentally became LinkedIn content creators.

The Great Stealth Mode Exit

For months, we had been operating in classic startup stealth mode. We spoke in vague terms about "creator tools" and "monetization platforms," carefully avoiding specifics about our actual solution. Like most early-stage founders, we were paranoid about someone stealing our brilliant, world-changing idea.

Then we arrived at Unicorn Factory and quickly realized that stealth mode was about as useful as a chocolate teapot.

"How are you going to validate your market fit if no one knows what you're building?" asked one of our first mentors, with the kind of blunt directness that only comes from someone who's seen hundreds of startups make the same mistake.

The advice was simple: get out there, share your vision, and let the market tell you if you're onto something valuable.

So we made a decision that felt terrifying at the time: we would build in public.

From Secret Agents to LinkedIn Evangelists

The transformation was dramatic and immediate. One week we were mysterious startup founders who spoke in riddles; the next week we were posting detailed updates about our AI Chief Revenue Officer concept, sharing insights about the creator economy, and openly discussing our challenges and learnings.

The response was overwhelming.

Our LinkedIn posts about creator monetization challenges started attracting comments and shares from industry professionals we'd never heard of. Direct messages began flooding in from potential partners, advisors, and prospects who had been silently following our content.

This led to a fascinating discovery that one of our mentors had warned us about: the 1-9-90 rule of social media engagement.

The Silent Majority Revelation

"Here's something most startups don't understand," explained one particularly insightful mentor during our third week. "On social media, 1% of people create content, 9% actively engage with likes and comments, and 90% just observe. But guess where most of your actual customers come from?"

The answer, of course, was the silent 90%.

As our inbound prospect meetings increased, we began asking each potential partner how they had discovered us. The pattern was striking: most hadn't liked, commented, or shared any of our posts. They had been quietly reading our content, evaluating our progress, and deciding whether we might be worth their time.

This insight fundamentally changed how we thought about content marketing. We stopped obsessing over engagement metrics and started focusing on providing genuine value to the silent observers who were actually making purchasing decisions.

The validation was immediate: our prospect meeting requests increased dramatically as we became more transparent about our vision and progress.

The Serendipitous Full Circle

One of the most memorable moments came during a fireside chat featuring Rami Saad and Vito Strokov from Halo AI. These were the founders who had won the pitch competition at the 1 Billion Followers Summit in Dubai, the same event where we had first validated our creator economy thesis months earlier.

Sitting in a virtual audience listening to them share their journey felt like a full-circle moment. We had started our journey by attending their industry event, and now we were in the same accelerator program, working on adjacent problems in the creator economy.

During the Q&A, we had the opportunity to share our own experience from that Dubai event and how it had influenced our product direction. The connection was immediate and authentic: two teams that had been shaped by the same industry moment, now pursuing complementary visions.

This serendipitous encounter reinforced something we were learning throughout the program: the creator economy is still small enough that meaningful connections and unexpected intersections happen regularly. Building relationships within this ecosystem isn't just valuable, it's essential.

The Mentor Marathon

The quality and diversity of mentors at Unicorn Factory exceeded our expectations. We had anticipated working with successful Portuguese entrepreneurs and investors, but the roster included experienced founders and executives from across Europe and beyond.

This international perspective was crucial for GYST, since our primary markets are outside Portugal. Having mentors who understood the nuances of different creator economy ecosystems, from the global influencer marketing landscape to individual country's platform-specific monetization approaches, provided insights we couldn't have gained elsewhere.

The mentor meetings fell into several categories:

Pitch Refinement Sessions: These focused on distilling our vision into increasingly clear and compelling presentations. We learned to lead with the problem rather than the solution, and to quantify market opportunities in ways that resonated with different investor types.

Go-to-Market Strategy: These sessions helped us think systematically about customer acquisition, pricing models, and partnership strategies. The recurring theme was the importance of focusing on a specific niche before attempting broader market expansion.

Product Development Guidance: Technical mentors helped us think through architecture decisions, development timelines, and feature prioritization. Their experience proved invaluable as we selected our development partner and committed to our 8-week alpha timeline.

Reality Checks: Perhaps most valuable were the mentors who challenged our assumptions and pointed out potential blind spots. These conversations were often uncomfortable but consistently productive.

The VC Marketing vs. Reality Gap

One of the most eye-opening insights came from a mentor with extensive fundraising experience across multiple startups. We had been planning our fundraising strategy based on public statements from VCs about their willingness to invest in pre-revenue, pre-seed companies.

"Here's what they don't tell you in their marketing," the mentor explained. "VCs will take meetings with pre-revenue companies, they'll give you feedback and encouragement, they might even indicate strong interest. But when it comes time to actually sign checks, most won't commit until they see paying customers."

This revelation forced us to adjust our timeline and priorities. Instead of focusing immediately on fundraising, we redirected our energy toward customer acquisition and revenue generation. The alpha platform wasn't just about product validation anymore, it was about creating the customer traction that would make fundraising conversations more productive.

The Virtual Reality Challenge

One unexpected aspect of the Unicorn Factory experience was that most interactions were virtual. Except for the first day, the entire program operated remotely: mentor meetings via Zoom, events via livestream, even casual networking through digital platforms.

For founders who thrive on face-to-face interaction, this was initially frustrating. The energy and spontaneous connections that emerge from in-person gatherings were largely absent.

However, we discovered unexpected benefits to the virtual format. Meetings were more focused and efficient. Geographic constraints disappeared, allowing us to connect with mentors and prospects across multiple time zones. And the recorded sessions created a valuable knowledge base we could reference later.

Most importantly, the virtual format forced us to become more intentional about relationship building. Without the serendipity of hallway conversations, we had to be more strategic about follow-ups, more deliberate about maintaining connections, and more creative about finding ways to add value to our growing network.

The Intensity Management Challenge

The most challenging aspect of our Unicorn Factory experience wasn't any single meeting or event; it was the relentless pace. For nearly two weeks, we maintained a schedule of back-to-back meetings from 8:30 AM until 8:30 PM, showcasing our prototype, gathering feedback, and refining our vision based on real-time market input.

This intensity served a purpose: it compressed months of potential learning into a few weeks of concentrated experience. But it also tested our stamina and decision-making capabilities under pressure.

We learned to be more selective about which meetings to prioritize, more efficient in our presentation and feedback gathering, and more systematic about documenting and acting on insights. The experience taught us valuable lessons about sustainable growth and resource management that will serve us well as GYST scales.

From Oversharing to Strategic Transparency

By the end of our first 30 days, we had completely transformed our approach to startup communication. We went from secretive founders afraid of competition to transparent builders actively sharing our journey.

But this wasn't random oversharing; it was strategic transparency. We learned to share insights that demonstrated our expertise and progress while maintaining appropriate boundaries around proprietary technology and competitive advantages.

The results spoke for themselves: increased inbound interest, stronger mentor relationships, more productive prospect conversations, and a growing community of supporters who were invested in our success.

Looking Forward

Our first month at Unicorn Factory Lisbon taught us that building a startup isn't just about creating a great product; it's about building relationships, communicating effectively, and learning continuously from market feedback.

The intensity was overwhelming at times, but it forced us to grow faster than we would have in isolation. We emerged with clearer vision, stronger partnerships, and the confidence that comes from surviving concentrated startup boot camp.

Most importantly, we learned that transparency isn't a weakness; it's a competitive advantage. In a world where authentic connection is increasingly rare, building in public creates opportunities that stealth mode simply can't match.