{"id":230830,"date":"2026-03-26T14:38:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T14:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/26\/why-hiring-the-weirdos-works-techcrunch\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T14:38:00","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T14:38:00","slug":"why-hiring-the-weirdos-works-techcrunch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/26\/why-hiring-the-weirdos-works-techcrunch\/","title":{"rendered":"Why hiring the weirdos works | TechCrunch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p id=\"speakable-summary\" class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When you\u2019re building at breakneck speed, hiring a trusted team is crucial for an early-stage startup. In this episode of Build Mode, Isabelle Johannessen sits down with Isaiah Granet, the CEO and co-founder of Bland, a voice AI company that has grown from pre-seed to Series B in just 10 months. Their team has ballooned to 75 people and Granet has tactical advice on how the company managed to find hidden talent in unlikely places.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\n\t<iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"tcembed-iframe tcembed--megaphone wp-block-tc23-podcast-player__embed\" height=\"200px\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" seamless=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/playlist.megaphone.fm?e=TCML9658304264\"><\/iframe>\n\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With a founding team fresh out of college, Bland\u2019s early hires were selected for their passion, rather than pedigrees.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe were searching for a really long time for our founding engineer. The person that we ended up hiring, his work experience was a few months at an insurance company in Iowa. And before that, he had been a manager at a Taco Bell, and before that on a factory floor,\u201d Granet told Build Mode, adding that the team found him through his GitHub account.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe thing that got me was not his tech,\u201d Granet said. \u201cWe asked him, like, what do you do for fun? And I have never seen a grin as big as on his face. He said, \u2018I like to ship code.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After that hire, Bland began prioritizing people who were obsessive about their passions and as young and scrappy as the company. From philosophy majors to beekeepers, the Bland team has been built on people outside of the typical tech ecosystem.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThere\u2019s people out there that have things that are not valuable on r\u00e9sum\u00e9s, but are incredibly cool. What it just shows is that level of obsession, because that can be put onto anything,\u201d Granet said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As the company has grown in the past year, the leadership team has had to learn not only how to hire, but also how to keep the team motivated and happy. In the episode, Granet goes into detail about how Bland developed a fair pay structure and ensured that all early hires understood their equity.\u00a0<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-techcrunch-inline-cta\">\n<div class=\"inline-cta__wrapper\">\n<p>Techcrunch event<\/p>\n<div class=\"inline-cta__content\">\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"inline-cta__location\">San Francisco, CA<\/span><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"inline-cta__separator\">|<\/span><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"inline-cta__date\">October 13-15, 2026<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There are downsides to this hiring philosophy, he said. Scrappy talent can be inexperienced, so the company often has to adjust for employees who may need time to grow into a role.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Bland expects that if it\u2019s going to invest in an employee, the employee will also invest in the company and put in the work to improve. \u201cIf you\u2019re not delivering outcomes, our expectation is that you\u2019re going to be in the office six days a week, 12 hours a day,\u201d Granet said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This way of hiring can also be difficult to scale, especially at the rate Bland is growing. The co-founders are extremely hands-on with the team to ensure they\u2019re performing at the high-level required, Granet said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The founding team can make or break an early-stage startup, and Bland\u2019s unique hiring methods and lightning-fast growth point to the benefit of finding the secret sauce to acquiring talent. \u201cI think for the most part, honestly, early-stage startup founders should go with their gut and everybody finds their own pattern of hiring that works,\u201d Granet said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/apply\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Apply to Startup Battlefield:<\/strong><\/a> We are looking for early-stage companies that have an MVP. So nominate a founder (or yourself). Be sure to say you heard about Startup Battlefield from the Build Mode podcast. <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/startup-battlefield\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Apply here<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/events\/tc-disrupt-2026\/?utm_source=buildmode&amp;utm_medium=Podca%5b%E2%80%A6%5dpt2026&amp;utm_content=ticketsales&amp;promo=buildmode15&amp;display=true\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>TechCrunch Disrupt 2026:<\/strong><\/a> We\u2019re back for TechCrunch Disrupt on October 13 to 15 in San Francisco, where the Startup Battlefield 200 takes the stage. So if you want to cheer them on, or just network with thousands of founders, VCs, and tech enthusiasts, then <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/events\/tc-disrupt-2026\/?utm_source=buildmode&amp;utm_medium=Podca%5b%E2%80%A6%5dpt2026&amp;utm_content=ticketsales&amp;promo=buildmode15&amp;display=true\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">grab your tickets<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Isabelle Johannessen is our host. <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/podcasts\/build-mode\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>Build Mode<\/em><\/a> <em>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.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2026\/03\/26\/why-hiring-the-weirdos-works\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When you\u2019re building at breakneck speed, hiring a trusted team is crucial for an early-stage startup. In this episode of Build Mode, Isabelle Johannessen sits down with Isaiah Granet, the CEO and co-founder of Bland, a voice AI company that has grown from pre-seed to Series B in just 10 months. Their team has ballooned [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":230831,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-230830","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tech"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230830\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}