What happens when a product manager becomes a CEO? Not in theory, but in the messy reality of co-founding an HR SaaS company, scaling it to 20,000+ customers, navigating an acquisition, and then starting something entirely new? At the inaugural Gathering of The Product Consortium, Michiel Crommelinck shared his personal journey from PM to CEO, structured around four discussion statements designed to challenge the audience's assumptions about the PM role.
Michiel's talk was not a lecture. It was built as a conversation starter: four provocative claims about product management, each followed by his own take from the trenches. The format reflected his belief that the best insights come from honest debate, not polished frameworks.
The Officient Story: From Four Co-Founders to Acquisition
Michiel opened with the story of Officient, the HR SaaS platform he co-founded in September 2017 with three others: Willem, Ilias, and another Michiel. The product targeted SMEs across the Benelux, offering a modern HR management tool. In three years, they grew to a team of 50, served over 20,000 customers, and developed partnerships with more than 10 payroll providers. Officient was relatively bootstrapped with no venture capital backing, and was acquired by Exact in September 2020.
