In this episode of SaaS Unscripted, host Nick van Eeten interviews Michael Smink — Strategic Growth Lead at Chargebee and a global top biller. Michael shares his journey from hotel management into recruitment at Michael Page, his move into SaaS sales at Plot Projects, and how he became one of Chargebee’s top performers worldwide. Along the way he covers strategic selling, executive alignment, dealing with competition, and the mindset shift from jealousy to inspiration.

Nick: Welcome to another episode of SaaS Unscripted, the podcast where we interview people with a glamorous career in SaaS. I’m very excited about this episode — Michael Smink, who has an incredible journey up to becoming a global top biller at the SaaS company Chargebee. Can you introduce yourself, Michael?

Michael: What an intro, Nick. Thanks for the invite, I really appreciate it — I was very much looking forward to this, not only because you helped me get into my first SaaS role, but also because we’re good friends. By means of introduction: I live in Amsterdam together with my wife and little daughter Olivia, born 12 weeks ago, and I work at Chargebee.

Nick: What I’d like to discuss today is that you started your journey in recruitment, and I want to hear what you took from that to become a global top biller in SaaS. But before we dive in, tell me about your youth — how did you grow up?

Michael: Start with the start. I was born in a house, and when I was about seven we moved to the eastern part of the Netherlands — Dutch people might know the Achterhoek, nice and calm — together with my parents; no brothers or sisters. Eventually I decided to study hotel management. I fell in love with the romantic idea of being the general manager of a beautiful five-star hotel, and I got to experiment with that during my internship in London during the Olympics, which was good fun. But it also made me realize that as a general manager of a hotel, it’s rather operational instead of you making the strategic decisions. So that’s where I decided maybe there’s something else outside of this hotel world. But with a bachelor in hotel management you’re not the most attractive candidate to any position out there.

Nick: Tell me about the journey at Page — you started as a trainee and you mentioned you ended up second in the Netherlands. How did you do that?

Michael: Michael Page is a huge organization — about 10,000 recruitment consultants worldwide, different divisions, and based on seniority you’d be placed in a certain division. I was doing junior positions within supply chain and logistics. There was one market in Amsterdam based on a few postcodes — the West Harbor of Amsterdam — and since we didn’t have any real customers in that region, everything had to be started from scratch. After year one, where I thought I was building relationships and doing the right things, leadership had a conversation with me like: hey, are you sure recruitment is something for you? That hurt, especially when you’re sitting in the office at 8 in the morning, making 12-hour days, thinking you’re doing the right things. That was in October or November, and then I kicked off the year in January with three placements. You’re as good as your last quarter, so the tables turned and you start to become the hero of the team. That evolved pretty well, up to the point where you’d enjoy those “4P lunches” — you make four placements, you go to a Michelin-star restaurant every month — and those lunches stacked up. Then I earned my “red card” — the logo of Page Personnel, a brand of Michael Page, was red, so the red card was when you’d exceed a certain percentage of target — and afterwards the black card, the thing everybody would be very proud of. But it also made me realize, okay, this is to a degree transactional. I’m curious to have a more long-term impact on a business, build long-standing relationships with more senior stakeholders, and handle a more complex sale. I didn’t realize back then that that was SaaS — I was just looking for more money.

Nick: Do you have tips for recruiters — what did you do to hit all those milestones at Page?

Michael: Maybe it sounds cliché, but be genuinely curious. What helps for me is to really understand what people do in their day-to-day job, what makes somebody feel excited about the stuff they do. By understanding what their day looks like, it becomes easier to understand their ambition, and you build a better relationship with your candidates — and you’d have the same conversations with potential hiring managers.

Nick: True curiosity is hard to find. You mentioned you’re very money-motivated — is that the reason you’re curious, or are you curious by default, and that leads to results?

Michael: The curiosity is not played — it’s actually just interesting to have a conversation that doesn’t stay on the surface, where you can really connect. I’m motivated to understand people, their personal motivations and behavior, and where it comes from. Where does it come from? Good question — I actually have no idea. When I was seven or eight, I always loved going to the rummage market once a year, where I’d sell all the stuff I wasn’t using, and I’d come home with a decent amount of money. To make a good sale, you have to at least be curious to understand somebody’s motivation, so maybe the curiosity is driven by the motivation to do business. But behavior is something you can teach yourself, so at a certain point it becomes natural to be curious. On top of that, it’s a natural connector — if you walk into any bar, you talk to everyone. It’s always awkward and uncomfortable doing something for the first time — standing in front of a group, doing a presentation. I remember being super nervous when I was younger; my face would turn super red, and out of insecurity you’d ramble and not think anymore, to the point you might get dizzy. I remember my talk about chickens when I was eight or nine, how nervous I was. But the key thing — cliché, because you hear it a lot — is being comfortable being uncomfortable. To a degree that’s a numbers game.

Nick: Let’s get to the point where you wanted to jump from Page to the SaaS world — that’s also when we met.

Michael: A mutual friend connected us and said, “Michael’s second at Page, make sure he gets a great job in SaaS.”

Nick: You were very driven to go into SaaS, and back then most hiring managers were cautious about hiring someone from a recruitment background. Now recruitment is almost a key search for people going into SDR or AE roles. Can you share how you experienced that period of your search?

Michael: It was difficult. As a recruitment consultant you work the full deal cycle — finding the candidate, building relationships with businesses, matching the two — and to have two people make decisions about joining a future is different than selling a software solution to somebody, because the software is typically not going to say no. What most hiring managers don’t understand when they consider hiring a recruiter for a sales position is how complex it is to match two human beings together. Typically I’d apply for AE positions and they’d say, “we feel more comfortable getting you into an SDR role.” Then a good friend of both of us, Rick Thomas, was like, “well, if he’s second at Michael Page, he can probably sell software as well,” and he was finally able to take an educated guess and try it with me.

Nick: It’s funny — we organized more than 10 interviews for you back then, and every hiring manager who didn’t pull the trigger now kicks himself. Your first SaaS step was at Plot Projects, correct? How would you describe that period?

Michael: I had no idea. We were selling location intelligence — based on somebody’s physical location, we’d track and store that data, which allows retailers to enrich customer profiles, have better audiences. Our app also allowed sending push notifications to a user when they’d be close to a physical store: “these products are currently at a discount, would it be worth going into the store?” A very clever solution that aligned perfectly with the omnichannel retail revenue-growth strategy. But in a recruitment cycle you’d talk to the hiring manager, to HR, and to the candidate. What I forgot to realize is that there are more departments responsible for making the decision in a deal at Plot Projects. A colleague back then, Vincent, said: if you’re talking to the head of product, given that what we sell also influences marketing and technology, procurement is going to be involved, and definitely somebody from leadership, because otherwise they’ll never sign off on a project. I was like, how would you know that — you don’t know my relationship with Arvind. There was a business in India, Future Group, the biggest retailer out there, 150,000 employees, and I thought I could close that deal with him alone. I had zero idea. So that was a steep learning.

Nick: Did you close that business?

Michael: I eventually closed them — I think it was 6 or 7,000 MRR. It’s still one of the biggest deals Plot Projects ever closed, and the first kind of enterprise deal I worked on.

Nick: What did you learn there, going from recruitment to a smaller-size company?

Michael: The multi-threading. Back in the day, the way I sold was all about creating urgency and understanding a business’s long-term strategic objectives. What I didn’t do in recruitment was understand where the business is heading — why is it so important to fill these positions? At Michael Page, a large logistics company would have finance, marketing, sales, logistics departments, so we as a team could have sold to them together and aligned better with their long-term strategy, which might be a big retention problem. But I never realized how that would work.

Nick: You were 20-something. You worked at Plot Projects for a while, and then there was a point you were looking again. What happened?

Michael: Total addressable market. We required the individual user to opt in for sharing location, and four or five years ago Apple and Google started rolling out notifications like “this app is tracking your location in the background” — that’s when the total addressable market significantly decreased. I shifted focus to India, where they were more open to sharing location if they got something in return, less privacy-sensitive than Europe and the US. With India changing there as well, and after a couple of reorganizations, for me it was a point where there’s a balance between loyalty and making a decision on what’s best for yourself. That’s when I reached out to you again.

Nick: What were you looking for then?

Michael: I enjoyed the startup vibe, being able to make a massive impact. I wanted to sell something complex — I didn’t know why, but something that has a large impact on an organization. What I learned from working at a seed startup is that VC funding will definitely help drive your strategy forward even when you don’t make the necessary revenue yet. But I wanted a more mature company — ideally a US-based company, funded by well-known VCs, with a relatively small team but already a relatively strong name, at least 10 or 20 million ARR. That was the goal I expressed to you.

Nick: For people looking for a new role in SaaS, what does VC funding tell you?

Michael: We’ve all seen the bubble where, based on a good idea, businesses would invest tens of millions. But the concept of funding is that people trust your business — you might already have product-market fit, and you can assess the maturity based on the series they’re in. You’d expect something different from a Series A compared to a Series D. So if you’re moving into software, I’d recommend the more junior people start at maybe Series C or up, because that’s where you’d get more support in your development. At a smaller startup, product-market fit isn’t discovered completely yet, the ideal customer profile still has to be determined, there aren’t a lot of customers to learn from — it’s more discovery, experimentation, evangelizing a proposition, being first in the market where people don’t believe it yet.

Nick: Would you join a small startup again?

Michael: Hypothetically, but then through network. I wouldn’t go blindly into a new position where a recruiter I don’t know approaches me, where I don’t know the VC behind it, or I’m not connected with the current leadership team — or nobody I trust is connected with that leadership team — because every business is so different, and it’s hard to assess based on a website only. What I’d look for is like-minded people who are experts in a certain vertical, or are very aware of a problem in the market that I’m not aware of yet, where you trust their idea and think: let’s do this, I trust this could be something big. That’s also what excites me at Chargebee — we make acquisitions, we heavily invest in innovation, and every time there’s something new, I’m super excited to test how it lands with the people we try to sell it to.

“There are two ways to look at someone else’s success: you can be jealous, or you can be inspired. There’s a very thin line between the two.”

Nick: Today everyone knows Chargebee in the SaaS ecosystem, but when you started, no one knew them. Tell us about that journey — your first grind at Chargebee.

Michael: You join a company with big expectations. I flew to India in January 2020, because Chargebee is Indian-founded, and immediately got in touch with an amazing culture. As Europeans, or maybe Dutch people, we might be less open to new joiners — “let him prove himself first” — whereas in India it’s completely the opposite. Great experience. I went through onboarding for three or four weeks, then came back to the Netherlands, and there was no one — I was the first guy. Chargebee is a revenue infrastructure: we help businesses with automation of billing, revenue recognition, online payments, enabling product-led and sales-led growth, with the goal of driving audit readiness, preparing for M&A, being attractive to VCs, or maybe an exit or IPO. But back then my idea was: we sell billing automation, and that’s what we did — we helped startups and scale-ups connect the dots, ensuring all the data would be in one ecosystem, primarily finance data, helping them move out of Excel, automate complex pricing models like tiered or usage-based. The pitch was: I’m trying to see if this resonates. I called people in my network: “hey, I’m not trying to sell it to you, I’m just trying to explain what we do — can you help me understand how that would hypothetically resonate in your organization? I don’t understand what the problems are in this industry.” That resonated well and helped me get up to speed fast. That’s when we hired Tarmo as well — tens of years in financial technology — who could help me understand: “Michael, there are other players in the market, more mature, but the reason I joined Chargebee is because our product is way stronger.” He helped me a lot with those competitive pitches, primarily against Recurly and Chargify, and we’d win tons. That’s when I started to realize this is heading in the right direction.

Nick: Fast forward — we heard your first salary in recruitment was 2,200 per month. What kind of ballpark do we need to think of if someone aspires to be a global top biller at a SaaS company?

Michael: At Chargebee I’ve typically always been in the top three, and for two years number one globally. In terms of salary, you can think of hundreds of thousands of euros every year when you sell over a million or a million and a half for the business. And that’s not just Chargebee — that’s very common for businesses that sell enterprise solutions. Then the sky is the limit.

Nick: How does someone go from new to SaaS sales to becoming a global top biller? What are your learnings and tips for people earlier in their journey?

Michael: Nobody gives a damn about the product you sell — nobody. When you’re trying to push a product to an organization, even when they knocked on your door for help, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll buy. You might be talking with the wrong stakeholder; maybe somebody is just curious to understand what’s out there and there’s not even a project. Then you’re at a point where you think you’re at a technical win, you start discussing commercials, and they say, “share the pricing proposal,” because they’re just curious.

Nick: How do you overcome that?

Michael: It’s understanding the strategic objectives of the business. Let’s say it’s an organization that did multiple acquisitions. We could assume every entity they acquired has their own ecosystem — billing system, ERP, CRM, spreadsheets. Typically after acquisition comes consolidation, both to impact customer experience and, more importantly, operational efficiency, with the eventual goal of being auditable. When the Big Four knocks on your door, you have to make sure the data you show is correct. I’m going into a lot of detail, but that helps us understand why businesses need to change. In the first two years of Chargebee, I was looking at the individual entity, seeing they had two or three FTE manually managing invoicing operations — three people, expected salaries about 70k, cost of labor 210k. My deal is maybe 30 or 40K, so that’s a 500% improvement. I’d think, there’s clear ROI, why are you not buying? What I forgot is I was talking to one entity, and I might have a competitor or another consulting firm talking to the parent company, because they will top-down initiate all the changes. I might be stuck with this financial controller who wants to automate some of his work. So what it taught me is: go straight to the top.

Nick: That’s interesting — when I asked about pivotal moments, you were two years into Chargebee, a global top biller, and you still felt you didn’t have control.

Michael: Exactly. You mentioned a book — it taught me executive alignment. Executives tell you more about their future than somebody who’s a director. A director might not even be aware. Executives — their job is on the line if it doesn’t succeed, they’re facing the same challenges, and they feel more comfortable sharing experience from CFO to CFO, from CEO to CEO, because they’re facing the same problems.

Nick: What other drivers do you have? We talked about money and laughed about it, but if we dive deeper, you have other things that drive you.

Michael: Together with my wife Robina, that we can enjoy life — having the flexibility to make decisions and enjoy ourselves, whether that’s a nice holiday in the Caribbean, but also saving the right amount of money to buy our dream house and be comfortable. Marrying a wife or husband who’s very strong and can serve as your foundation, who keeps you honest — it’s definitely that. Robina gives me tons of flexibility, she supports me, and she’s a neuropsychologist, so she can help me understand my own behavior a little better. At the same time, the grind is required — but the grind is not so much in activity, like “I’ve got eight discovery calls today.” It’s: focus on the real deals, go deep, don’t be afraid to spend time researching, thinking, going over that email a million times, spend tons of time on business cases — especially with strategic deals, but also smaller ones. Over-invest in the opportunities that most likely will give you the biggest returns.

Nick: How do you know which those are, if you only have a few years of experience?

Michael: Learn from the people who are more senior in your business — don’t be afraid to ask for help. What I see a lot is people reaching out on Slack. I’m a firm believer in spending face time with colleagues or like-minded people where you can share experiences, frustrations, wins. When you’re face to face, good luck saying no. It’s super easy for people to focus on their bigger priorities, but if you’re in the office, just interrupt somebody — they’d be open to sitting down five minutes to help you out. You’ve got to be patient and go through a bit of a roller coaster, because growth is not linear. It helps to think that every time you’re at the deepest part, you’ll get over it. If you just push through, stay positive, stay motivated, eventually everything comes to an end — and then there will be a new problem. What was less positive, for instance: I worked last year on a deal for over a year, outbound-sourced everything, went to Berlin multiple times, flew in people from India and the US to present to their executive team, multi-day workshops, everything heading in the right direction — and then silence. Around my bachelor party this year we were close to getting that Hail Mary deal signed, and it didn’t push through. I was so sad — it felt like a loved one saying “we’re ending this relationship.” Let’s focus less on the numbers, which is incredibly difficult, and focus on the most ICP customers with the most ideal business scenario that requires change, where there’s a critical event we’re aware of — dive deep, build business cases, learn, adapt, have fun, and the numbers will come later. The critical thing is: don’t make decisions when you’re super happy, and don’t make decisions when you’re super sad. Be loyal, and things will come onto your path.

“Don’t make decisions when you’re super happy, and don’t make decisions when you’re super sad.”

Nick: Do you ever get tempted to look around — “the grass is greener,” this person has more success than me?

Michael: I think that’s part of why I’m so motivated to keep changing and challenging myself — because you see the success of others. But that might not be a jealousy thing; there are two ways to look at it — you could be jealous, or you could be inspired. There’s a very thin line between the two. Jealousy was something I experienced a lot back in the day, and it helps when you’ve been a top performer for a while and then others close larger deals: first you’re like “oh, this hurts,” but then it’s “great, this is perfect, apparently we can sell even larger deals — let’s have a conversation, share experiences.” It’s good when people around you buy bigger houses, close larger deals, drive whatever cars, or are on holiday 10 weeks a year — that should be inspiration.

Nick: So you’ve been on a journey from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset.

Michael: I never thought about it like that, but yeah — it just doesn’t work when you feel envy or hate that somebody else has success; it impacts the way you do business. To overcome that, you have to change it.

Nick: Thanks a lot, Michael. This is a great story of someone who successfully built his career in SaaS. Any other tips for people listening who want to get inspired by your journey?

Michael: Of course, have a conversation with Nobel Recruitment — they helped me with my dream job. But seriously: have a lot of conversations, try to have a broad mindset, and don’t underestimate the network you have. Especially talk with people who are more mature in their career than you are, to understand their learnings and failures — on one side to make sure you’re performing well as a human being, and on the other side, don’t forget that when you pick a job, that’s something you’ll spend a huge percentage of your time on. Look broad and try to understand the bigger picture before you sign up for something.

Nick: Thanks a lot for all these inspiring learnings, Michael. I think we can talk for hours, like we usually do. I’ve seen you grow personally — you’ve up-leveled your life with your success in SaaS. I’ve been to your wedding in Italy, in almost a castle, where all your friends and family came. Besides a great career, you’re building a great family and a great human yourself. Very happy to have you in my network.

Michael: Appreciate that. And thanks so much for allowing me to work at Chargebee, because you sold me well.

Nick: Thanks for joining us on SaaS Unscripted. To explore the latest career opportunities, visit our website, nobelrecruitment.com, and don’t forget to subscribe and leave your review on your favorite podcast app. Until next time on SaaS Unscripted.