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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