Patrick Spychalski, Co-Founder @ The Kiln | A 2X Company, recently posted something that made me stop scrolling: "The Kiln has been acquired by 2X! When we started The Kiln 2.5 years ago, we did so with the goal of providing best in class service quality for the budding and quickly-growing GTM Engineering space." That simple announcement carries a lot more than company news; it captures a shift in how go-to-market teams are being built.

As Patrick explained, The Kiln set out to deliver best-in-class service quality in a new, fast-moving category: GTM Engineering. Along the way they worked with "some incredible companies" but felt they were missing one critical ingredient: the infrastructure to truly be "the enterprise choice" for large organizations that want to get more out of tools like Clay.

In this post, I want to unpack what Patrick is really pointing to: the rise of GTM Engineering as a must-have function for B2B enterprises, and why the acquisition of The Kiln by 2X matters far beyond a single startup success story.

What Patrick Spychalski Built With The Kiln

To understand the significance of this acquisition, you have to understand what The Kiln actually represents.

At its core, The Kiln has been a specialist GTM Engineering partner: a team that sits at the intersection of sales, marketing, RevOps, and engineering. Instead of writing code for the product, they engineer the revenue engine itself:

Stitching together data from CRMs, enrichment tools, and product usage
Automating prospecting and outreach workflows in platforms like Clay
Building custom scoring, routing, and reporting systems for growth teams
Turning manual, spreadsheet-driven processes into reliable, scalable systems

For the last 2.5 years, Patrick and his team focused on one thing: world-class service quality for this emerging function. That is exactly how many transformational categories start: with boutique experts who prove what "great" looks like long before the rest of the market catches up.

Why GTM Engineering Matters Right Now

Patrick’s post highlights just how quickly GTM Engineering has moved from "nice to have" experiment to strategic lever.

Most B2B companies are sitting on a goldmine of data and tools: CRMs, enrichment platforms, intent data, product analytics, workflow automation, and now AI copilots layered on top. But without GTM Engineers, these tools rarely work together in a way that truly moves the needle.

A strong GTM Engineering function can:

Turn complex tool stacks into a coherent, revenue-producing system
Enable hyper-personalized outreach at scale using platforms like Clay
Give sales and marketing teams reliable, real-time intelligence
Eliminate manual busywork that burns out reps and clogs pipelines

Patrick’s belief that "every enterprise B2B company should have GTM Engineers in their toolkit" is not hype. It is a recognition of where the market is headed: toward GTM systems that are designed, built, and maintained with the same rigor as product engineering.

The Enterprise Gap Patrick Pointed Out

Even with strong traction and loyal customers, Patrick admitted that The Kiln was missing something: the enterprise-grade infrastructure needed to be the default choice for large organizations.

Enterprise B2B buyers expect:

Security, compliance, and governance baked into every workflow
Global coverage, 24/7 support, and resilience at scale
Deep experience navigating procurement, legal, and IT review
The ability to roll out standardized systems across dozens or hundreds of teams

Smaller, highly specialized firms often excel at innovation but struggle to check all of those enterprise boxes quickly enough. That is the gap Patrick called out in his post — and the gap this acquisition is designed to close.

Why 2X + The Kiln Is Such a Strategic Match

Patrick highlighted that 2X brings a 1,200+ person team with experience serving large enterprises, along with the "resources to bring GTM Engineering to the next level." This is where the story gets especially interesting.

2X has scale, process, and trust with enterprise buyers. The Kiln brings deep GTM Engineering expertise and a track record of pushing the frontier with tools like Clay. Together, they can offer something the market has been missing:

The creativity of a boutique GTM engineering shop
The reliability and reach of a large, established services firm
A clear path for enterprises to standardize GTM engineering as a core capability

For customers, this means they do not have to choose between innovation and stability. For the GTM Engineering discipline itself, it means a credible path to becoming a recognized, mainstream function inside every serious B2B revenue organization.

Lessons for Founders and Operators

Reading between the lines of Patrick’s announcement, there are a few takeaways that stand out for founders, operators, and GTM leaders.

1. Nail Service Quality Before You Chase Scale

The Kiln did not start by trying to be everything to everyone. They picked a focused wedge — GTM Engineering for high-growth B2B teams — and obsessed over "best in class service quality." Only after proving that model did they find a scale partner in 2X.

2. Specialization Needs a Distribution Engine

Even the most differentiated service offering needs distribution, infrastructure, and operational muscle to win enterprise. 2X provides that at a level a small team cannot easily recreate on its own. The combination of sharp specialization plus scaled distribution is increasingly how category leaders are formed.

3. Design for Enterprise, Even If You Start Mid-Market

Patrick’s reflection about missing the infrastructure to be "the enterprise choice" is a good reminder. If you think enterprises are in your future, start building toward their requirements early: security, compliance, documentation, repeatable playbooks, and robust measurement.

4. Do Not Ignore the Human Side of the Journey

Patrick closed his post with a personal note of gratitude — thanking God, partners like Clay, 2X, Insight, and Recognize, and everyone who supported The Kiln so far. It is easy to focus only on the transaction, but behind every acquisition are people who took risks, trusted each other, and did the hard work day after day.

The Future of GTM Engineering in Enterprise B2B

What excites me most about Patrick’s announcement is not just the success of one company, but the signal it sends about the future.

If 2X and The Kiln succeed, we will likely see:

GTM Engineers sitting alongside RevOps, Sales, and Marketing leadership
Standardized playbooks for building Clay-powered prospecting engines
More enterprises treating their GTM stack as a product that gets continuously improved
A new generation of operators who blend technical skills with commercial instincts

In that world, an acquisition announcement like Patrick’s is not an endpoint. It is a milestone in the broader maturation of how revenue teams are built and run.

As Patrick wrote, he and his team are "incredibly pumped for our next chapter together." For anyone building in B2B SaaS, revenue operations, or GTM systems, this next chapter is worth watching closely.

This blog post expands on a viral LinkedIn post by Patrick Spychalski, Co-Founder @ The Kiln | A 2X Company. View the original LinkedIn post →