How to avoid bad hires in early-stage startups | TechCrunch

"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. 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."

"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. 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"

Sarah Lucena founded Mappa, a behavioral intelligence platform using voice AI to decode human behavior and improve hiring outcomes. Traditional hiring relies on credentials, experience, and gut instinct, but Lucena discovered these markers often fail to predict real-world performance. Mappa analyzes speech patterns and biomarkers from a proprietary dataset of hundreds of interviews to assess behavioral traits. The platform focuses on compatibility rather than labeling traits as inherently good or bad, recognizing that success depends on aligning individual tendencies with appropriate roles and environments. Mappa's all-Latinx team brings personal experience with overlooking bias and superficial discrimination, driving their mission to create fairer hiring practices.

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