Voice AI Startup Finds Top Talent at Taco Bell

When Isaiah Granet needed a founding engineer for his voice AI startup Bland, he didn't look at fancy tech companies or prestigious universities. He found his perfect hire managing a Taco Bell in Iowa.

The candidate's resume showed just a few months at an insurance company and years in fast food and factory work. But when Granet asked what he did for fun, the man's face lit up with the biggest grin he'd ever seen. "I like to ship code," he said.

That moment changed everything for Bland. The startup, which grew from pre-seed funding to Series B in just 10 months, now has 75 employees. Most of them don't fit the typical tech worker mold.

The team includes philosophy majors and beekeepers. Granet and his co-founders, all fresh out of college themselves, search for obsession instead of experience. They believe passion transfers to any challenge.

"There's people out there that have things that are not valuable on resumes, but are incredibly cool," Granet told TechCrunch's Build Mode podcast. "What it just shows is that level of obsession, because that can be put onto anything."

The founding team discovered their Taco Bell engineer through his GitHub account, where his personal coding projects revealed his true capabilities. His technical skills mattered, but his enthusiasm sealed the deal.

The Ripple Effect

This unconventional hiring approach is reshaping how startups think about talent. Bland's success proves that traditional credentials don't always predict performance. Young companies can find incredible team members in overlooked places.

The strategy comes with challenges. Scrappy hires sometimes need time to grow into their roles. Bland invests heavily in employee development and expects that commitment returned through hard work and dedication.

As the company scales, maintaining this personal touch gets harder. The founders stay hands-on with their team to ensure everyone performs at the required level. They've also developed fair pay structures and clear equity explanations so early employees understand their value.

Granet's advice to other founders? Trust your instincts. "I 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."

The next breakthrough engineer might be serving tacos, tending bees, or studying ancient philosophy right now.