--- title: How to avoid bad hires in early-stage startups | daily.dev description: Sarah Lucena, CEO of Mappa, shares how repeated bad hires while building a marketing team inspired her to create a behavioral intelligence platform that uses... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-avoid-bad-hires-in-early-stage-startups-ktlubidya twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: How to avoid bad hires in early-stage startups | daily.dev og:description: Sarah Lucena, CEO of Mappa, shares how repeated bad hires while building a marketing team inspired her to create a behavioral intelligence platform that uses... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-avoid-bad-hires-in-early-stage-startups-ktlubidya og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/kTLubidYA.png og:image:alt: How to avoid bad hires in early-stage startups og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # How to avoid bad hires in early-stage startups **[TechCrunch](https://daily.dev/sources/tc)** · 3 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Sarah Lucena, CEO of Mappa, shares how repeated bad hires while building a marketing team inspired her to create a behavioral intelligence platform that uses voice AI to assess candidate compatibility in under 60 seconds. Rather than relying on resumes or gut instinct, Mappa analyzes speech biomarkers to determine whether a candidate's behavioral tendencies align with a given role and environment. Lucena's core advice for early-stage founders: prioritize compatibility from the start to avoid the costly cycle of hiring, firing, and rehiring. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Mappa’s AI voice analysis helps you find the best job candidates and will show off its tech at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025](https://daily.dev/posts/mappa-s-ai-voice-analysis-helps-you-find-the-best-job-candidates-and-will-show-off-its-tech-at-techc-a5sboqc3l) · TechCrunch · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#startup](https://daily.dev/tags/startup), [#voice-ai](https://daily.dev/tags/voice-ai) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-avoid-bad-hires-in-early-stage-startups-ktlubidya) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"How to avoid bad hires in early-stage startups","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-avoid-bad-hires-in-early-stage-startups-ktlubidya","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-avoid-bad-hires-in-early-stage-startups-ktlubidya"},"datePublished":"2026-02-26T13:06:59.891Z","dateModified":"2026-02-26T13:07:30.329Z","description":"Sarah Lucena, CEO of Mappa, shares how repeated bad hires while building a marketing team inspired her to create a behavioral intelligence platform that uses...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/44b13a56cdd5fdb4efd9f85ab5627266?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/44b13a56cdd5fdb4efd9f85ab5627266?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"TechCrunch","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"TechCrunch","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/tc","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/tc"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-avoid-bad-hires-in-early-stage-startups-ktlubidya","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"startup,voice-ai","timeRequired":"PT3M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"TechCrunch","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/tc"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"How to avoid bad hires in early-stage startups"}]} ```