When I was in Zurich last December, I sat down with Nicolas Berchten and we had an incredibly deep conversation. We talked about his entrepreneurial journey, but also about his mental health and what the past few years have really been like for him.

And he shared things that… felt very familiar. Almost like a pattern.

Especially when I think about the stories I keep hearing from other founders joining the Neurospicy community. And that’s exactly why I’m building this.

It’s always this same arc:
Extreme drive leads to giving too much, to the point where you start losing yourself. And then, when the company is suddenly no longer there or you can’t overcompensate anymore, you’re left exposed.

And that’s when the real question hits:
Who am I without my company?

Boris:
Let us start with the present.
Where are you today in your entrepreneurial journey.
What are you working on right now.

Nico:
At the moment I am involved in a company mainly as an advisor, not as a co-founder.
They are building a functional mushroom cacao product. The company is called GAYA.

I am involved almost like an investor. I work quite operationally, but I am not an official founder.
When I met the team earlier this year I was still in a very different mental phase. I did not yet know where I wanted to go myself.

Now I support them on strategic topics, product innovation and events.
Even though I come from the software world, many of the approaches to innovation are actually similar when you build physical products.

At the same time I am exploring what my next step could look like.
Should I start another company. Most likely it would again be in software. That is where I feel most comfortable after the last ten years.

But another part of me is asking whether it might make sense to join an existing company that already has certain structures in place.
Not a large corporation. I cannot imagine that. But perhaps a scaleup where I would not carry the full responsibility.

At Evenito I was always involved everywhere.
Even towards the end, after I had delegated many management responsibilities, I remained very jumpy between topics.
That actually drove me. It allowed me to function very well.

Right now it feels interesting to consider doing something more structured.
To have a clearly defined role.
I have never really experienced that before.

Boris:
We often believe we need total freedom.
But sometimes it can be comforting to have a frame. To know what your boundaries are.

Nico:
Yes. I am extremely freedom loving. I always said that.
But you fight for freedom and then at some point you can feel a bit lost in the openness.

So right now I am in application processes while also working on a new software project of my own.
It is in the healthcare space. The idea is to build a platform that helps people achieve goals in a holistic way.

This includes mental aspects as well as the health data people collect.
It could support recovery after surgery, preparation for athletic challenges or long term ambitions such as participating in the Olympic Games.

For the past two months I have been working on a prototype together with a doctor friend.
We hope to launch a beta version soon.

At the moment I do not want money to be the dominant factor for my next step.
I want to do something that I genuinely enjoy. Something that feels intrinsically meaningful.

Boris:
Let us go back a little.
How did your entrepreneurial journey with Evenito begin. What was that time like for you.

Nico:
It started while I was still studying.
At the time I was working on the side in the event industry. We were involved in a large hotel opening in Andermatt and the agency we worked with built a digital invitation tool for several tens of thousands of Swiss francs.

I remember telling my boss back then that we could build something like this ourselves and reuse it.
He liked the idea and introduced me to a few people. That is how I met my co-founder Markus. I was still in the middle of my master’s studies at that point.

My thesis topic was actually about quality management in the pharmaceutical industry. I was always interested in process optimisation across different industries.
But once we started building Evenito I became completely absorbed by it.

I neglected my studies quite a bit. In the end I almost did not finish my master’s degree.
I had to cancel my original thesis and later wrote a new one about Evenito within one or two months. I was simply working all the time.

Boris:
Two birds with one stone.

Nico:
Exactly.
I was so deeply involved in the company that everything else became secondary.

Evenito is usually described as an event management platform.
But in reality it is more a process optimisation platform for corporate events. It is modular and can be used for everything from employee gatherings to large conferences. It is also white label. The end user does not even see the Evenito brand. It is a classic B2B SaaS product.

We started working on the first prototype around 2015.
The company was officially founded in 2016. I only finished my master’s degree at the end of 2017. In total it took me four years. But in the end that did not really matter.

At first we bootstrapped the company.
In 2019 we raised around two million in funding. That turned out to be extremely important because in 2020 Covid hit.

The entire event industry was suddenly turned upside down.
At first there were no events at all. Then everyone wanted virtual events. After that hybrid events became the big topic. And eventually people wanted to return to physical events again.

That funding round basically saved us.
At the same time it gave us the opportunity to rebuild the entire platform from scratch. Our original architecture was not designed for thousands of people joining live streams at the same time.

In a way Covid became a huge chance for us.
We had built the first version rather intuitively. Now we could design a much more scalable and stable product.

After Covid we found strong product market fit and became profitable quite quickly. From then on the company continued to grow in a sustainable way.

Boris:
What was your personal role during that time.

Nico:
I was always the managing director, but I never felt like a traditional CEO.
My role was more to go wherever complexity or problems appeared. Sometimes that meant sales, sometimes customer success, sometimes product.

I never really wanted to manage people in the classical sense.
Quite early we introduced a co CEO model. I worked together with someone who was more structured and focused on organisational topics. That allowed me to stay in a more visionary and integrative role.

That was extremely exciting because I had almost no boundaries.
Nobody told me how I had to work.

At the same time my days were completely filled with meetings and responsibilities.
I did not have to structure my own life. Everything was already structured for me by the company.

I think that is one reason why I functioned so well for such a long time.
Even though I worked extremely hard.

As the company grew we reached around fifty employees.
And with growth came more specialisation. People focused on specific areas. I could no longer be involved in everything.

I never really managed to redefine my role for the long term.
What happens when the company runs smoothly.
What happens when you are no longer needed everywhere.

Last year that question became very real for me.
Suddenly I had much less to do. My days were no longer fully booked.
What sounds like freedom actually overwhelmed me.

I struggled to give myself structure.
And that was the beginning of a very difficult phase.

Boris:
The company was doing well at that point, right.

Nico:
Yes, the company was doing well.
And that is actually the strange part. I think it was one of the reasons why things stopped working for me.

The high pressure was gone.
The structure of a fully booked day was gone.

Before, my days were filled from morning until evening. One meeting after another. Topics came to me. I worked on them and moved on to the next one.

I was involved in sales, customer success, product.
Constant switching between contexts. That worked very well for me.

But once I had to define my own priorities, it became difficult.
If I had a task that I needed to complete within a week, I sometimes could not get it done anymore.

Boris:
So you were no longer in that flow state.

Nico:
Not at all.
I started to struggle with even basic things.

At some point I could not write emails anymore.
I had panic attacks.

Looking back, the signs had been there for a while.
But at the time I kept telling myself that I just needed to push through.

There is this stubbornness.
Combined with a lack of structure, it led to a point where I simply stopped functioning.

Boris:
When there are no external problems, the mind starts creating its own.

Nico:
Exactly.
I actually love problems.

I love the pressure, the complexity, the risk.
Deadlines give me energy.

But the company had reached a stage where things were more about scaling and stabilising.
We focused on making the product robust and reliable rather than constantly building new things.

For me that created a kind of vacuum.
The level of innovation decreased, and with it my motivation.

I tried to compensate by taking on special projects.
But our clients were mostly banks and insurance companies. Highly regulated environments.
There are limits to how much experimentation you can do there.

We even tried to shift my role more towards innovation.
But that did not work either.

I had a strong urge to disrupt and change things.
That energy did not really fit into the phase the company was in.

Boris:
Was there a specific moment where you decided to step back.

Nico:
It started last autumn.
I reached a point where I had something like a collapse.

People told me I needed to take a break.
And that was probably the hardest time of my life.

At first I spent one or two weeks just trying to understand what was happening.
Something felt wrong, but I could not explain it.

I tried to go to a doctor.
But several times I stood in front of the practice and walked away again.

It felt incredibly difficult to say out loud that I could not work anymore.
There was no visible reason. From the outside everything looked fine.

Eventually I went.

The first doctor was not very helpful.
He suggested I see a psychiatrist.

So I went to a crisis and intervention center in Zurich.
There I spoke to a psychiatrist and told him everything I felt was off.

He very quickly suggested that I should get tested for ADHD.
He is actually leading research in that field and immediately connected the patterns.

Boris:
That was about a year ago.

Nico:
Yes, last autumn.

Boris:
Had you considered ADHD before that.

Nico:
Many people had mentioned it over the years.
But as it often goes, I was functioning well.

Looking back now, I can see the patterns much more clearly.
This year I spent a lot of time reflecting on my past.

When things somehow work, you develop coping strategies.
You find ways to get through.

For me that worked very well for a long time.
I was never a particularly diligent student, but I still performed well.
I always managed to get what I wanted.

So I told myself everything was fine.

But there are hidden costs.
And those accumulated over time.

Boris:
That idea of hidden cost is very real.

Nico:
Yes.
And for me a big part of it was that I identified completely with Evenito.

I gave so much to this company that I stopped asking myself how I was actually doing.
As long as the company was doing well, I assumed everything was fine.

That is simply not sustainable.

Boris:
There are so many parallels here.
I can relate to this a lot.

Nico:
Yes.
And then you reach a point where you have to ask yourself who you are without the company.

That was exactly where I found myself.

I took a break at the end of September.
I started therapy quite quickly. Later I also began exploring medication, but not immediately.

At first I resisted medication.
I told myself I had managed everything in the past without it.

But at the same time I was curious.
I wanted to understand what was going on.

More importantly, I wanted to understand myself again.
Because I had completely neglected that for years.

Boris:
So at that point you started therapy. When did medication come into play.

Nico:
At the beginning I did not want to take medication.
I told myself I had managed everything in the past without it, so I should be able to do it again.

But I was also curious.
I had actually experimented with it before. Back at university I tried Ritalin once or twice.

What was funny is that when I took it, I just fell asleep.
I did not understand that at the time, so I stopped.

This time I approached it differently.
I wanted to first understand the topic better.
And I wanted to understand myself again.

Because I had completely neglected that for years.
How I feel. What I want. What actually drives me.

So I started therapy.
At the beginning of the year I felt a bit better and thought I could return to work.

Boris:
Like, I am fine again, I can go back.

Nico:
Exactly.
I went quite deep into therapy and then thought everything was solved.

But it became clear very quickly that going back was not the right decision.
We had many discussions and in the end we agreed that I would step out of the operational role.

The company also had to restructure a bit after that.
If I am honest, it was probably the best decision I could have made.

Of course I wanted to go back.
It was my baby. I had spent ten years building it.
I did not know anything else.

And I had achieved a lot with it.
The company was profitable, growing, people were paid well, the product was strong.

But at the same time I had always told myself that the first company is just a step.
You build it, maybe you exit, and then you use that to do something more meaningful.

Evenito was a process optimisation software for banks and insurance companies.
If I am honest, that was not what I wanted my long term legacy to be.

That created an internal conflict for me.

So stepping away also gave me the space to figure out who I am outside of the company.

Nico:
At first it actually got worse.
After leaving I felt really bad.

For the first time in my life I struggled a lot.
Looking back, it was probably necessary to go through that.

I went deeper into therapy and at some point decided to try medication.

But I approached it with a very clear intention.
I did not want it to be a permanent solution or something I depend on.

For me it was more like a tool.

If you take medication, it helps you function in that moment.
But it does not fundamentally change who you are in the long term.

So my goal was to use it to learn.

I wanted to understand what it feels like when my brain works in a more structured way.
And then try to recreate that state without medication.

Nico:
I had to try different options.
At first I took Concerta.

That did not work well for me.
Sometimes it completely threw me off.

Later I switched to Elvanse.
That worked much better.

When I take it, I can do things that I normally would avoid.
That is the classic effect.

Boris:
You can finally do the things you do not feel like doing.

Nico:
Exactly.
The other things I already enjoyed, I could always do. Sometimes even with too much energy.

One of my biggest challenges was always that if something did not fascinate me, I simply would not do it.
Or I would delay it endlessly.

Medication helped me to experience a different mode.
A state where I could just execute.

Nico:
What I started doing was very intentional.

When I take the medication, I create a plan and follow it.
Then the next day I try to recreate the same structure without medication.

The goal is not to depend on it.
The goal is to train my brain.

And that actually works quite well.

There is this assumption that once you have medication, the journey is done.
But I do not see it that way at all.

For me it is just one part of the process.

I started building my own system.
Trying different things like journaling and meditation.

But in the end I came back to something very simple.

Every morning I sit down and define two or three tasks.
One of them has to be something I am excited about.
One of them is something I simply have to do.

Then I block time for those tasks.

It sounds simple, but the key is that I have to sit down in the morning and define it.
If I skip that step, I fall back into my default mode.

Then I jump between five things at the same time.
A bit here, a bit there, constantly switching context.

It is not easy.
But it works.

Boris:
Everyone seems to find their own path.
That is what makes these conversations so interesting.

Nico:
Yes.
And I think the important part is to become aware of how you function.

If you take medication, you get a glimpse of how things could feel.
And then you can try to recreate that state.

In a way you are programming your own mind.

That might sound strange, but it is about influencing how you experience situations.

Boris:
It is about designing your life in a way that actually fits you.
Not trying to fit into a predefined structure.

Nico:
Exactly.
I also consciously create time where I do nothing.

At the same time I have phases where I go very deep into things.
Especially now with AI tools and what people call vibe coding.

That fits very well with how my brain naturally works.
You can jump between different tools and ideas while still staying productive.

But that only works because I currently have the freedom to structure my life this way.

Boris:
It also sounds like you are building your own operating system for how you work and think.

Nico:
Yes, in a way.

I tried a lot of different approaches.
Journaling, meditation, writing things down by hand.

But I realized I am a very visual person.
And also quite practical.

For example, I can write by hand, but it feels slow and uncomfortable.
Sometimes I cannot even read my own handwriting afterwards.

So I started using voice instead.
When I go for walks, I just record my thoughts.

Later I can transcribe them, structure them and turn them into something more concrete.

That works much better for me.

If I want to think through an idea in a structured way, I need to see it visually.
But when I am outside or moving, voice is the easiest way to capture thoughts.

And now with AI tools this has become incredibly powerful.

Nico:
One of the biggest shifts for me is how I handle context switching.

I naturally jump very quickly between different topics.
That used to feel like a weakness in certain situations.

Now I can actually use it as a strength.

For example, I have different environments set up for different contexts.
If I work on Gaya, I go into that environment.
All the relevant information, ideas and documents are there.

Then I might switch to a completely different topic.
A personal project, a new idea, or something creative.

Within minutes I can go very deep into that context again.

Before, switching like this often meant losing track.
Now I can maintain depth across multiple areas.

That is a huge change.

Boris:
It sounds like AI is becoming a kind of companion in that process.

Nico:
Yes, exactly.

It helps me structure my thoughts.
Especially when starting from a blank page.

I have built different setups where I store context.
Documents about how I think, what I have experienced, what I am working on.

In some cases I even created something like a personal version of myself.
A system that reflects how I think and allows me to interact with it.

That might sound a bit strange, but it is extremely useful.

Because normally when you talk to someone, you always have to rebuild context.
Here the context is already there.

And since I switch contexts very quickly, this becomes a real advantage.

I can go deep into completely different topics without losing momentum.

Boris:
At the same time you mentioned that you still enjoy building things physically.

Nico:
Yes.
That balance is very important for me.

I like working with my hands.
Building stages, working with wood, creating something tangible.

It is very different from digital work.
You immediately see the result.

That gives a different kind of satisfaction.

I do not want to only live in the digital world.
I need both.

Boris:
It also sounds like you are redefining what work actually means for you.

Nico:
Yes.

I think a lot of it comes down to designing your life in a way that fits your brain.

For example, there are phases where I do not work in a traditional sense.
But that does not mean I am not productive.

Sometimes the best ideas come when you are not forcing anything.

Other times I go into deep focus mode and build something quickly.

With the tools we have today, especially AI, it is becoming easier to work in this flexible way.

You can move between exploration and execution much more fluidly.

For me that feels very natural.

ADHD, identity and not wanting a label

Boris:
One thing I am curious about.
Now that you understand ADHD in a new way, how do you relate to it publicly.
Is that something you want to talk about openly.

Nico:
It is a bit complex for me.

On one side, ADHD has almost become a kind of identity marker for some people.
And I think that is okay in certain ways.

But for me personally, I do not want to define myself through that label.

I am still in the process of understanding how I function in detail.
And I prefer to talk about behaviors, patterns and experiences rather than putting everything into a single category.

At the same time I do talk about it.
Especially with friends or people who are dealing with similar topics.

We talk about how we function in certain situations.
What works well. What does not.

But I try to avoid making it my main identity.

Nico:
I think part of it also comes from my past.

I strongly identified with my company.
I talked about Evenito all the time, but rarely about myself.

Now I am careful not to replace that with a new label.

I do not want it to become
"this is Nico, the ADHD founder."

I want to stay more open than that.

Boris:
Otherwise it just becomes the next thing you attach yourself to.

Nico:
Exactly.

And I think it is more interesting to talk about specific traits anyway.
How people think, how they feel, how they behave.

That gives a much richer picture than just using a single term.

Boris:
What are some of the traits you have become more aware of.

Nico:
One positive aspect is definitely the ability to switch contexts quickly.

I can go very deep into completely different topics in a short amount of time.
That can be extremely valuable, especially when solving complex problems.

For example, I could be in a technical discussion about software architecture and then switch into a completely different conversation about customer success or strategy.

That ability helped me a lot in the past.

But it also comes with downsides.

I can get distracted very easily.
Especially when things become emotionally difficult.

I used to be very good at avoiding negative thoughts.
I always focused on the positive side of things.

That sounds good, but it also meant that I did not process certain emotions properly.

Over time those things build up.

And that was one of the factors that led to my collapse.

Nico:
I realized that I was almost too good at distracting myself.

Whenever something uncomfortable came up, I would shift my attention somewhere else.

That worked for a long time.
But it also meant that I never really dealt with certain things.

Eventually that catches up with you.

It is not always easy to sit with difficult thoughts or emotions.
But it is necessary.

Nico:
Another thing I noticed is how differently people react.

In some environments, the way I think and communicate works very well.
Especially with people who have similar patterns.

There is an instant connection.

In other environments, it can feel overwhelming or even unprofessional.

For example, in very structured corporate settings, where everything is planned and controlled, my way of jumping between ideas can be difficult for others.

So it really depends on the context.

Boris:
Do you ever think about whether it would have been better to know all of this earlier.

Nico:
Yes, I do.

But honestly, I am glad things happened the way they did.

When I look back at my childhood, it was chaotic, intense, sometimes extreme.
But it also shaped who I am today.

I learned to deal with things in my own way.

If I had been diagnosed very early and medicated right away, I am not sure if that would have been better.

In some cases it might make sense.
But I also think it is important to learn how to work with your own patterns.

ADHD is not simply something that is good or bad.
It is a combination of traits that interact with the environment.

And often the problem is not the person, but the system they are placed in.

We are not built to sit still for hours or follow rigid structures all the time.

For me the biggest shift has been awareness.

Understanding how I function.
Learning how to design my life around that.

Not trying to fit into something that does not work.

And also being honest about both sides.
The strengths and the challenges.

This conversation is a reminder that success and struggle can exist at the same time.

From the outside everything can look right.
Growth, traction, stability.

And internally, things can slowly fall apart.

Nico’s story is not just about ADHD or burnout. It is about identity.
About what happens when the structure that carried you disappears.
And about the work required to rebuild something that actually fits.

GAYA Website
https://gaya.earth/

Instagram
@berchtino

Headsquarter Podcast Studio / Co-Working Space Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/headsquarter_zurich/