The Founders Peak Podcast · Where exceptional startup founders share untold stories that shaped who they are

Managing Euphoria and Terror: A Founder’s Guide to Staying Sane - Season 15 (Singapore, Nov 2025)

·12 min

Matthias Imbach, co-founder and group CEO of the Swiss fintech unicorn Signum, shares his personal framework for managing the intense emotional swings of founding the world's first digital asset bank. He delivers this talk, recorded in Singapore, reflecting on a journey that began with an idea at Gardens by the Bay after the 2017 Singapore Fintech Festival. Imbach confesses that had he fully understood the monumental challenge of founding a bank, especially a digital asset bank, he would have never dared to start. Growing up in a risk-averse Swiss environment, he began his career on a conventional path at Bain & Company. His entrepreneurial passion was ignited in three acts: his brother mining Bitcoin at home in 2012, reading Jaron Lanier's "Who Owns the Future?" in 2013, and witnessing the launch of the Ethereum Foundation's ICO in 2014. A pivotal mentor was the legendary industrialist Ratan Tata, whom Imbach met as a student organizing the St. Gallen Symposium. Tata convinced him to skip an INSEAD MBA and later, when Imbach resigned to start his venture, told him he was proud of him for trying, which provided a crucial confidence boost. Imbach describes euphoric moments like securing a banking license in 2019, seeing nine-digit sums hit their systems, and feeling the company culture at a Christmas party with 270 employees. The terrifying counterpoints include losing his father to ALS in 2022 and, the day after the funeral, having a core team member try to exploit his vulnerability for a salary increase. He also cites managing a bank manually through a market crash during a weekend maintenance window and dealing with damaging media exposure. A surprising insight is his daily practice, since adolescence, of talking backwards to himself in different languages as a form of brain training. He argues that the core challenge isn't just feeling euphoria or terror, but managing the constant, exhausting oscillation between them. Imbach reveals that Signum holds pineapple opening ceremonies in Switzerland and that he refuses to have a physical CEO office, preferring to stay in the "engine room." He offers four concrete tools: always putting problems in perspective by asking "what's the worst that can happen," applying Ratan Tata's daily "sunshine test" for ethical decisions, enforcing a "zero asshole policy" to surround himself with loyal people, and leveraging emotional volatility as a communication tool to rally his team. He believes passion, the right people, and positivity are essential to turn fear into fuel, concluding that euphoria and terror are the inherent rhythm of meaningful entrepreneurship. The tone is confessional, introspective, and educational, blending personal narrative with practical advice. The style is conversational yet structured, moving from personal anecdotes to a clear, three-part philosophical framework. This episode is perfect for aspiring or current founders grappling with the psychological toll of building a company, especially in high-stakes sectors like fintech. Listeners seeking purely tactical business advice without the emotional component might find it less directly applicable.

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify