The End of the Sales Funnel: Dan Tyre on Building and Scaling Startups

Dan Tyre has been at the forefront of the tech industry for over four decades. As HubSpot's sixth employee and a veteran of multiple successful startups, he has seen it all. From his first startup gig that turned a company from $100,000 to over a billion in revenue to coining the now-ubiquitous term "schmarketing," Dan has a unique perspective on what it takes to build a great business. In a recent interview, he shared his playbook for scaling, the importance of culture, and why the old rules of sales no longer apply.

Schmarketing: A new era of buyer behavior

In the traditional business world, sales and marketing were two separate departments with their own goals. Dan saw this siloed approach as a major roadblock to growth. In 2007, he coined the term "schmarketing" to describe a new, collaborative approach.

The idea came from a simple observation: with the rise of the internet, buyer behavior had fundamentally changed. Customers were no longer beholden to a salesperson's structured process. They could research, compare, and learn about a product on their own time. This led to a new and frustrating phenomenon: "ghosting." A lead would show initial interest, only to disappear before a salesperson could make contact.

Dan's solution was to break down the wall between sales and marketing. Salespeople needed to understand and leverage the data from marketing—who was visiting the website, what pages they were looking at, and how often they were returning. This information, he argues, creates a built-in trust and a more efficient sales process. The modern sales process, powered by a unified "schmarketing" strategy, is no longer about cold calls but about adding value to an already-engaged customer.

The investor's blueprint: Niche, quality, and a "learn-it-all" mindset

For founders looking for investment, Dan offers a clear roadmap. He emphasizes that the first step is to establish a strong ideal customer profile (ICP). By dominating a specific niche, a startup can build a reputation and gain market share much faster than trying to be everything to everyone.

Once a niche is identified, the focus must be on quality. Dan is a fanatic on this point. "If a product doesn't work, you're pooched," he says bluntly. The MVP (Minimum Viable Product) must still be a good product. As a company scales, complexity increases, and the product must work flawlessly across different geographies, languages, and legal entities. He advises founders to recognize when it’s time to outsource complex tasks like security and legal compliance to a specialist who has done it thousands of times.

Finally, he stresses the importance of a "learn-it-all" mindset, a lesson he learned from his time at HubSpot. A founder cannot "outrun" complexity by simply working harder. Instead, they must be willing to take advice, delegate, and pivot when necessary. This mental agility, combined with a focus on core values, is what separates a short-term success from a long-term enterprise.

The foundation of great companies: Culture and retention

Dan firmly believes that a great company isn't built in a day. It takes time—often eight years or more—to cultivate the culture, recruit the right people, and build a truly resilient business.

His most profound observation is a fundamental shift in business priorities. For decades, the mantra was "the customer is always right." But in 2025, that has changed. According to Dan, a company's most important asset is its employees. "Why is it so important?" he asks. "Because it's those employees that can create a product that has the quality and has the functionality and makes the customers want to do it."

This focus on employee satisfaction and a strong internal culture leads directly to the ultimate metric of success: customer retention. Dan is an avid user of data to measure this. He looks at customer renewal rates and uses tools like the Net Promoter Score (NPS) to get unfiltered feedback, calling it the "Breakfast of Champions." When a company's product is so good that customers not only stay but also become advocates, that is when a business can truly scale through referrals and word-of-mouth.

Dan’s career and philosophies are a testament to the fact that while technology and markets change, the core principles of building a great company—quality, culture, and a relentless focus on the customer—remain timeless.

Speakers in the episode

Dan Tyre

CEO & Founder at Tyre Angel

Dan is a 17-year veteran of HubSpot, hired as employee number six in 2007. While initially the first salesperson at HUBS, Dan also helped expand the sales team through management, recruiting, and training responsibilities. Outside of HubSpot, Dan leverages his 46 years of multidisciplinary business experience in sales, marketing, and service to help scale fast-growing companies and coach leaders who want to harness the power of Inbound to improve their leadership skills and the company's bottom line. Dan is the CEO and Founder of Tyre Angel, an investment firm building great leaders and building great companies throughout the world.

Josh William Burmistre-Griffiths

Digital Marketing and Paid Ad Specialist

Josh William Burmistre-Griffiths works at TestDevLab, focusing on digital marketing and paid advertising across multiple platforms. His past experience working at agencies and unicorn startups has equipped Josh with the expertise to bring valuable digital marketing insights to Tech Effect.