Zimbabwe-born entrepreneur Dave Thompson, co-founder of Hometime and founder of Freedom Ventures and RunRemote, didn’t grow up around traditional career paths. He grew up around entrepreneurs, everywhere, all the time. That foundation shaped a career built on freedom, leverage and the belief that business should serve your life, not swallow it.
In today’s episode, Dave shares how he took a Bondi Airbnb experiment and turned it into a multi-country, 200-person operation with institutional investment… and then walked away to build an entirely new model of entrepreneurship. Through RunRemote, he’s helping ecommerce teams hire top global talent without the middleman, bloated margins or opaque BPO models.
Today, we’re discussing…
- How Dave built Hometime from a Bondi Airbnb listing into a 200-person, multi-country operation
- The formula behind his “zero-to-one” founder mindset and venture studio approach
- Why global talent is becoming ecommerce’s biggest competitive edge
- How Run Remote is reinventing offshore hiring for quality, transparency and cost efficiency
- The systems, frameworks and mindset shifts founders need to scale without burning out
Chapters
5:05 The Birth of Hometime
10:23 Identifying Opportunities and Market Fit
12:50 Scaling Hometime and The Secret Sauce
15:21 Timing and Strategic Partnerships
20:55 Reflections on Teamwork and Leadership
24:07 A Trip Back to Zimbabwe
25:10 Launching Freedom Ventures
27:07 Building Capital-Light Businesses
29:09 The Importance of Distributed Teams
33:24 The Rise of Remote Work
38:24 Case Study: Bailey Nelson
41:02 Finding Top Talent in Ecommerce
44:37 The Business Model of RunRemote
Before you leave…
Come behind the scenes with Add To Cart Community! Join our crew of ecommerce operators chasing growth, sharing wins, and staying sharp with deep dives, live events and no-BS inspiration.
