The moment 2X secured private equity backing in March 2023, CFO Brandon Sullivan knew expectations would shift overnight. “There’s gonna be a press release,” he remembers thinking. “Our new PE partners will open up a treasure chest of relationships for us—we need to be ready.”
In anticipation, Sullivan and his team ramped up hiring, ensuring 2X had the supply of talent needed to meet the expected surge in demand. But in the six months spent navigating investment negotiations, pipeline oversight had faltered. Revenue didn’t spike as expected. Instead, churn crept up. “We had holes we hadn’t paid attention to,” Sullivan tells us. “And the benefits we thought would be immediate weren’t—they needed time to take root.”
The result? A painful lesson in timing. They had staffed up, but business momentum had stalled, sending gross margin percentages downward month after month. The wake-up call came swiftly—a tough conversation with the PE board. “It was needed,” he admits. “The realization hit: Monthly reporting was too infrequent for a dynamic business like ours.”
Sullivan responded by implementing weekly reporting cadences, blending both lagging and leading indicators to catch trends early. Now, the executive team could course-correct 52 times a year instead of 12. With financial insights delivered in a 15-minute report, surprises were eliminated, and reaction time accelerated. “It’s been a game changer,” Sullivan says. “Now, when we see an issue, we don’t wait—we act.”
For Sullivan, agility in finance isn’t just about reporting numbers—it’s about ensuring the business is always ahead of the curve.
Made Possible By
CFOTL: Tell us about 2X—what does the company do, and what are its offerings today?
Sullivan: 2X is rethinking the way enterprises structure and execute their marketing operations. Our founder and CEO, who was a CMO himself, saw firsthand how companies build large, expensive, and often inflexible marketing teams that struggle to keep up with rapid changes in technology. He knew there had to be a better way.
That’s where our Marketing-as-a-Service model comes in. We provide enterprise-grade B2B marketing execution through a highly skilled offshore workforce based in Malaysia and the Philippines. If you think about how managed services have transformed IT and HR, we’re bringing that same level of efficiency and scalability to B2B marketing.
Read MoreAt the core of what we do, we help companies solve three big challenges.
First, cost efficiency. Marketing budgets are always tight, and we’re able to deliver about 50% cost savings per hour of work without sacrificing quality. In fact, our rigorously trained teams often improve execution while freeing up budget that companies can redirect into growth initiatives, whether that’s more program spend or better technology.
Then there’s flexibility. Traditional marketing teams are built around fixed headcount, which makes it tough to scale up or down when business needs change. With our model, companies convert that fixed cost into a variable, subscription-based model—giving CFOs and CMOs much more control over spend and margins. It’s especially valuable when companies need to pivot quickly, whether that’s shifting priorities, managing seasonal demand, or adapting to new technologies.
And finally, risk mitigation. Hiring is one of the biggest challenges in marketing today. We take on that risk by handling all the hiring, training, and ongoing certification of marketing talent. Our teams are already experts in the modern B2B marketing tech stack, which means companies can see value much faster instead of spending months onboarding and upskilling new hires.
The results speak for themselves. Since I joined, 2X has grown at an 80% compound annual growth rate. We consistently hear from CMOs who face the same impossible equation: “My CFO just told me we need to increase revenue by 20% and cut our budget by 20%.” That’s the reality they’re dealing with. And the old way of doing things doesn’t solve that problem. What we’ve built at 2X helps marketing teams do more with less—without compromising execution or outcomes. That’s why the demand for our model keeps growing.
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