As Head of Portfolio Talent at Pantera Capital, I’ve had the distinct pleasure of working closely with some of the best founders in the crypto industry and I’m here to tell you that you should think twice before making that hire! In fact, it’s likely the person you’re about to hire does not even address the problem they are being hired to solve. If you’re a founder or hiring manager, one simple exercise can save your team hundreds of hours and potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars every year!

 

With this current bull run, 2025 is poised to be a very active year for hiring. Now that teams are doing capacity planning for the new year, it’s critical to be thoughtful about how you’re hiring! 

 

One exercise I’ve been running with portfolio founders is to help them scope out roles more effectively. This is a basic exercise of assessing the problem that an additional hire is supposed to tackle. In our talent practice, I guide founders through questions such as:

 

• What specific problem is this hire meant to solve?
• Why do you need to solve this problem?
• Why is solving this problem critical now?
• Why is this a priority?
• Why can’t an existing team member take this on?
• What would happen if you didn’t make this hire?
• What must this person accomplish to succeed in the role?
• How will you measure success?
• What skills or qualifications are truly essential, and which are ‘nice to have’?

 

Anyone who has gone through this exercise knows that after answering these questions, the initial role and requirements are rarely ever the same. 

 

Over the past decade in talent, I’ve observed that at least 25% of startup roles are poorly scoped—leading to misalignment and costly hiring mistakes. This is the main reason why startups frequently rush into hiring too quickly.  

 

To put it simply: one in four roles fail to align with either the problem they aim to solve or the skills required to address it. This misalignment creates confusion among recruiters, interviewers, and hiring managers—ultimately resulting in unproductive interviews or bad hires. The impact? Your team may be wasting productive hours each week interviewing the wrong candidates. You may even have an extended offer out to the wrong candidate at this very moment!

 

Between ‘unnecessary’ interviewing and subsequent ‘bad hires’, leaders are wasting hundreds of interviewing hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars by not scoping out roles. A bad hire can cost your business 30% of the employee’s first-year earnings, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Some HR agencies estimate these costs to range from $240,000 to $850,000 per employee. Beyond monetary losses, a bad hire can also impact team morale, productivity, and culture. When you factor in morale and other qualitative impacts, the true cost of a bad hire is even higher.

 

At a time where the cost of making a bad hire is higher than ever, it’s critical to scope out your roles correctly! Fortunately, there are straightforward solutions. Conducting an intake or ‘scoping’ session is one of the simplest and most effective ways to avoid these issues. To help founders avoid these pitfalls, we’ve created a customizable intake template for our portfolio companies. Access it here!  

 

Additionally, it’s a healthy practice to designate a ‘pragmatist’ or ‘devils advocate’ to question every open role you have. 

 

The key to successful hiring starts with fully understanding the problem you’re trying to solve. Thoughtful scoping leads to better outcomes—for your team, your candidates, and your company.