Tech start-ups have been the darlings of business media in recent years, and for good reason: new technology is exciting and flashy, and tech entrepreneurs tend to share pithy catchphrases about grinding, hustling, or “moving fast and breaking things.”  

But what happens when a start-up needs to slow down?  

In the case of the investment app Pearler, speed was never the ultimate goal. Co-founder Hayden Smith thinks veering away from that traditional startup mentality has been key to building relationships with Pearler customers who now trust the company to manage approximately $1 billion of their money. 

Hayden explains to host Dr Juliet Bourke how he’s adapted his leadership style to the longer-term finance industry, and how his personal experience has informed the product development at Pearler. 

Professor Frederik Anseel, Interim Dean at UNSW Business School, shares a more nuanced way to understand failure when building a new business, and offers some practical strategies for managing – and more importantly, learning from – failure. 

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The Business Of podcast is brought to you by the University of New South Wales Business School, produced with Deadset Studios.  

The transcript and show notes can be found on our website here. 

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