Hayden Smith
Co-Founder and CEO at Pearler
Hayden Smith is co-founder and chief technology officer of Pearler, an Australian platform built to help everyday investors buy and hold shares and ETFs. A software engineer by training, he studied computer science at UNSW and worked at a small consultancy, Dolby Digital and Microsoft before co-founding Pearler in 2017 with Nick Nicolaides and Kurt Walkom, after recognising how many Australians missed out on financial security for lack of guidance. Pearler has since passed $500 million in assets under management and raised a $7.8 million seed round in 2022. On Founders in Motion, Smith discussed passive investing and trading less.
Key moments
Jump straight to the part of Passive Investing Australia: Get Rich Slow, The Fintech That Tells You to Trade Less | Hayden Smith, Pearler you want.
- 0:27 What Pearler actually is
- 0:54 Getting people started on the boring habit
- 2:46 The products: long-term, super, and investing for kids
- 3:36 CompareMeals: the first startup that fizzled out
- 5:29 Equal equity and the co-founder trap
- 7:42 Investors vs. "get rich slow"
- 10:00 Why he never quit lecturing at UNSW
- 10:33 Negative money: the bike crash and the surgery bills
- 11:48 The mental-health edge
- 12:36 When it's actually worth going all in
Connections
Spot something wrong? Suggest a correction Updated 25 September 2026
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