Bland scales from pre-seed to Series B in 10 months

Voice artificial intelligence startup Bland has grown from pre-seed (an early-stage funding round) to Series B (a later-stage funding round) in just 10 months. During this brief window, the company’s team has expanded to 75 people.

To fuel this expansion, Bland co-founder and CEO Isaiah Granet has bypassed traditional recruiting pipelines in favor of hiring for raw obsession. Speaking on the Build Mode podcast hosted by Isabelle Johannessen, Granet explained that the company’s early hires were selected for their intense drive rather than their professional pedigree. For example, Bland’s founding engineer—the startup’s first technical hire—had a resume that included working on a factory floor, managing a Taco Bell, and spending a few months at an insurance firm in Iowa. The team ultimately discovered him through his GitHub account.

“There’s people out there that have things that are not valuable on résumés, but are incredibly cool. What it just shows is that level of obsession, because that can be put onto anything,” Granet said.

When asked what he did for fun during his interview, the engineer reportedly smiled widely and stated he simply liked to ship code, a response that stood out to the co-founders far more than his technical credentials. This philosophy led Bland to recruit other unconventional profiles, from philosophy majors to beekeepers, who exist outside the typical tech ecosystem.

However, this unconventional talent strategy comes with strict operational demands. Because non-traditional hires can sometimes lack experience, Bland’s leadership actively manages performance and expects employees to quickly grow into their roles. For underperforming employees who are not delivering outcomes, the company’s explicit expectation is that they work in the office six days a week and 12 hours a day. To keep the team motivated, the company also established a fair pay structure and ensured early hires fully understood their equity, or ownership stake.

Ultimately, Granet believes early-stage startup founders should trust their gut regarding hiring, noting that every founder eventually develops a unique pattern that works for their business. Granet’s insights come ahead of TechCrunch Disrupt, which is scheduled to take place from October 13 to 15 in San Francisco.

Why it matters

Bland’s rapid ascent offers a practical look at how early-stage startups can bypass traditional hiring filters to build high-performance teams, though it highlights the intense operational demands required to sustain such growth.