How to avoid bad hires in early-stage startups

This week on TechCrunch’s founder-focused podcast, Build Mode, Isabelle Johannessen is joined by Sarah Lucena, the CEO and co-founder of Mappa, a behavioral intelligence platform that uses voice AI to decode human behavior in less than 60 seconds. 

Lucena got the idea for Mappa after trying to build a marketing team but continually feeling like she had made the wrong hires. “And I was so frustrated because I was hiring for what I thought were the right skills. It looked great on paper but didn’t really work in real life,” Lucena said.  

She had learned firsthand that hiring is typically based on markers of success like college degrees, previous work experience, and a gut instinct. But she knew there had to be a better way. So she developed Mappa and spent years creating a proprietary dataset based on hundreds of interviews that allowed her team to analyze behavior based on biomarkers indicated through people’s speech patterns. Through this process, the Mappa team found that to make the right hire the first time, a candidate can’t just be great on paper; they also have to be compatible.  

“There’s no trait that’s good or bad inherently; it’s more of what environment do you put that person in, and what roles are better aligned with people’s sort of tendencies and styles. So that’s how we’ve been thinking about defining compatibility,” Lucena said in the podcast interview. 

Mappa is powered by an all Latinx team that knows how frustrating it is to be overlooked based on superficial biases or a lack of the “correct” experiences. She describes them as underdogs that understand this problem on a personal level.  

“We are all underdogs. We are all folks that have been overlooked in some degree. And I guess that makes it even more important that we are the ones building this,” Lucena said. “Having people like us building this technology, at the level we are doing, with the quality we are able to get to the market and serving our clients the way we do. It also opens up a door for others to come and join and know that there are multiple ways still to build technology.” 

Lucena’s best advice for early-stage founders who are hiring is to take your time and be sure the compatibility is there from the beginning to avoid the hassle of hiring, firing, and rehiring for the same role.  

Isabelle Johannessen is our host. Build Mode is produced and edited by Maggie Nye. Audience Development is led by Morgan Little. And a special thanks to the Foundry and Cheddar video teams.