Add To Cart: Australia’s eCommerce Show
Add To Cart is Australia’s leading eCommerce podcast
Hosted by eCommerce expert Nathan Bush, this show express-delivers insights, strategies, and stories from the frontlines of online retail. Tune in every Monday for deep-dive interviews with eCommerce leaders, and every Friday for our signature 'Checkout' episodes - quick, actionable takes on what’s trending in eCommerce, retail, and digital marketing.
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Add To Cart: Australia’s eCommerce Show
The Hiring Playbook Delivering Ecommerce the Top 1% of Global Talent | #580
Zimbabwe-born entrepreneur Dave Thompson, co-founder of Hometime and founder of 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
Connect with Dave
Explore RunRemote
Want to level up your ecommerce game? Come hang out in the Add To Cart Community. We’re talking deep dives, smart events, and real-world inspo for operators who are in it for the long haul.
Connect with Nathan Bush
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The talent losers, you're losing. The only one who's winning is the agency. So we wanted to flip that around. I didn't want to have a business that we walked into and we were chained to that desk. It was like, well, if we can actually, you know, invest into a business culture that can work anywhere. Like that's awesome. Yeah, no real secret source, just a lot of like perseverance, a lot of hitting your head against the wall, and every so often a little lightning strike of luck, and eventually the stars all align.
SPEAKER_00:Hey, it's Nathan Bush or Bushy, joining you from the land of the terrible people here in Brisbane, Australia. I think if there was ever any industry that people think that freedom lives, it's in e-commerce. The idea of creating a brand, having some products, setting it all up on a Shopify site, and then stepping away, maybe going on holidays and having the whole thing run for itself is the idylly dream for many founders starting an e-commerce business. But for those who have been in it for a while, we know that is often not the case. My guest today is Dave Thompson, the founder of Freedom Ventures and Run Remote, and previously the co-founder of HomeTime. HomeTime was Dave's first entrepreneurial journey and is an Airbnb property management startup that scaled to 90 team members across five countries and became Airbnb's first official partner in Australia. After successfully exiting Home Time, Dave didn't just take time off, although he did play a lot of goal, he systemized everything that he learned and built a new venture that's now helping e-commerce founders scale smarter. It's called Run Remote, and it's part of his Freedom Ventures portfolio. And Run Remote is all about rethinking how e-commerce brands can hire top-tier offshore talent without bloat, without middleman, without compromising on quality and making that talent a part of the team. In this episode, we unpack Dave's entrepreneurial journey, which is quite remarkable and successful for someone who is so young. We talk about how brands like Bally Nelson are building high-performing offshoring teams for a team of about 30 people and discuss how AI and no code tools are reshaping how Dave builds businesses today. Jam-packed, so much in here, one of the smartest people in Australia when it comes to entrepreneurialship. We were very lucky to have him on the show. A big shout out to our partners Shopify and Clavio, who keep Add to Cart running. We are incredibly lucky to be partnering with them and we appreciate all their support. Let's get into today's episode. Joining me today is Dave Thompson, founder of Freedom Ventures and Run Remote. Dave, welcome to Add to Cart. Nathan, thank you very much for having me.
SPEAKER_01:Great to be here.
SPEAKER_00:Brilliant to have you here. We were introduced by a mutual friend, Mr. Andrew Ford from Crocked. Mr. Andrew Ford. Past guest of the show.
SPEAKER_01:Really? Absolutely. Yep. The legend that he is, Mr. Mr. Clayman.
SPEAKER_00:Your your mission today is to be better than Mr. Clayman.
SPEAKER_01:I I uh, you know, live to serve. We'll we'll see how we go.
SPEAKER_00:He said a low bar, don't worry about it. I love your story. And when we had a conversation offline, I was like, can we please tell your story to our audience? And we're going to unpack it today because you come from not an e-commerce background, which are always the stories that really appeal to me. And now you're helping e-commerce brands. And we will get to that. But I want to start off. What really appealed to me around what you're doing is that it's all grounded in freedom. Where does your value for freedom come from?
SPEAKER_01:That is a great question, Nate. I think uh it probably comes down to like my origins. You know, I am uh a Zimbabwean born and grew up in a very kind of entrepreneurial society. So interestingly, there's no real jobs per se in Zimbabwe. So grew up always exposed to entrepreneurship from you know the local guy selling oranges to uh obviously, you know, people within the network that have all had businesses, etc. And probably just saw like different lifestyles, you know, that people are leading. And uh yeah, all of it kind of you know unlocks uh freedom with I guess success and different business ventures. So that is potentially the origin. I'm not entirely sure, but uh it'll be good to cover it and unpack that. My dad was an entrepreneur, yeah. So he had a uh successful safari business, actually. So definitely a long way from e-commerce and I guess, you know, kind of status quo business building uh in Australia. But uh yeah, he had a a really awesome safari business and yeah, probably got a little bit of exposure through entrepreneurship that way, and obviously had the ambitions, you know, seeing what what he did, etc. etc.
SPEAKER_00:But uh yeah, who who knows, to be honest. Well, you've been incredibly good at it and had amazing success at and I'll give you a compliment here at at a young age. Um Thanks, mate. It's okay. Um it's either that or a very good filter.
SPEAKER_01:Very good filter, mate. Uh this uh Riverside Labs has got excellent uh filters.
SPEAKER_00:Tell me about Home Time, because that's obviously the big exit for you so far. And I've got a feeling there's a few more to come. But I think that's such an incredible story. Tell me around the problem that Home Time was solving and why you thought you were the right one to solve it. Awesome.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, cool. So Home Time essentially started uh all the way back in 2015. It was an interesting time, and I mean it felt like the whole startup ecosystem were like was like super nascent back then. So I actually started that with uh a good kind of unimate, a guy called Billy Croc. Shout out to Billy if he if he's listening. Yeah, him and I were good unimmates, and uh, I guess we always used to catch up and we always used to talk about, you know, trying to start a business of some sort, and we we definitely had the entrepreneurial itch, and you know, there would be many fears and ideas thrown against the wall, etc. etc. And then I think home time was us, you know, in an industry or segment that really kind of resonated between the both of us. So I bought a property, yeah, about 2014, and Bondi was like, ah, short term, that would be an interesting concept, go get the holidays paid for. And I guess that came down to the concept of like freedom as well, right? Which is like, hey, getting paid to go on holiday, that sounds like a really nice kind of concept. So yeah, Airbnb was a relatively unknown kind of category name, certainly not what it is today, right? When did Airbnb actually launch? Like when I'm trying to think peak Airbnb. Yeah, so Airbnb officially launched in 2012. Uh that was obviously the early days. Good old Brian Chesky and Co. launching from San Francisco, etc. And then Australia was definitely like one of the highest, you know, adopting countries, but it only really started to get meaningful traction probably in like, yeah, 2015, 2016. So that was obviously the the the time we started.
SPEAKER_00:So you're right riding the wave early.
SPEAKER_01:We were just riding the wave. We were like, hey, look, this is a big kind of tail when we could see the opportunity for what it was. A lot of, yeah, as mentioned, the kind of concepts resonated with us in terms of the ability of obviously airbang being your property and then the opportunities that that would present. So it's like, hey, you know, you can quit your job and you can get passive income. And the, you know, uh potential downside or the risks associated with just like taking the leap of faith are not really as daunting as they might seem, right? Because you are perceived to have a backup option. So I think that was that was it, really. It was just like, well, this is really cool, this is fascinating. And uh I put my property on Airbnb and it was just like couldn't believe obviously the booking velocity and you know the numbers that were coming through. I was like, Well, yeah, I'll quit my job, this is fantastic, I'll just do this full time. And then uh when on my honeymoon, actually, I guess I was a little bit apprehensive because we had just bought this property and uh I had no one really on the ground managing it. And uh it was like, oh geez, what about the guests and you know, what about the turnovers and all that kind of good stuff? So yeah, I was kind of did a bit of googling on the honeymoon and uh you're romantic. Oh, there you go, mate. Uh my wife was like, hey, let's you know enjoy our time. I was like, hey, I'm just thinking about business ideas. But yeah, interestingly, actually, so you know, rewind back a little bit. So we just got married actually in in Zimbabwe in a place called Victoria Falls. And Billy, my business partner, he obviously came to the wedding, and it was really interesting in that he obviously first time for him coming to Africa, and again, he was like amazed by the fact that every single person that he interacted with was essentially like an entrepreneur of some sort, right? So he didn't really come across too many people at the kind of wedding ceremony that all had like traditional, you know, normal jobs. So it was interesting kind of timing whereby, you know, I'm on honeymoon researching the category, and Billy comes back from Africa, arrives back into Australia, and then he just completely goes and quits his job. So he's like, I've had enough of he was uh he was an engineer, so a mechanical engineer and uh you know some engineering stuff, some big, big, big corporate. He obviously wasn't that excited by it. And um, yeah, he came back and he just put in his notice. Uh so that was really interesting. And then we we caught up when I got back, and I was obviously telling him about you know the Airbnb income that I'd earned whilst on holiday, which was fantastic. And he then proceeded to tell me that like he had just quit his job because he was so inspired by his African journey. And uh that was essentially the making of it. It was like, oh my gosh, okay, you're free, and um, you know, I could probably quit my job, so maybe we should give this a crack.
SPEAKER_00:And had you put any of those ideas that you'd thrown around before this into action, or is this your first true entrepreneurial crack?
SPEAKER_01:First true entrepreneurial crack. So I definitely had lots of like other potential ideas, but I I I didn't really have any frameworks around entrepreneurship, etc. I I knew that I certainly wanted to start something of my own, but it was really like, you know, I guess a bit of research, a bit of like waiting for the kind of right spark, right time, right place. So yeah, that that to me seemed like the the spark that was needed. And uh we all decided to just yeah, throw in the towels at the corporate gigs and uh and dive in head first. And we thought it was gonna be a lot easier and a lot more uh streamlined and and time efficient. It was like, cool, we'll start this, and in three years I'm sure we would have got an exit and then, you know, happy days, we can move on to the next thing, or we could just, you know, sell into the sunset and and retire, retire young.
SPEAKER_00:I saw a great post by um Jason Andrew the other day around the best time to be an entrepreneur is either pre-kids or post-kids, having them in the middle. So it sounds like you found a great spot there.
SPEAKER_01:I saw that exact post. I'm good friends with Jason Andrew, and he was right on the money. I think it's definitely a young person's game, certainly at the beginning. Or I guess the point that he was making is very much it's like you need to be all in and you need to be 100% focused, and it's like kind of like takes over your life in a good way. It feels super exciting, but you don't really have too much headspace to kind of think about too much else, and you just get immersed in that world. So yeah, I think it's definitely some wise counsel. It's uh it's harder when you've obviously got little ones running around, as we both know, and uh they take up a lot of your time and attention. Obviously, you want to you know give them everything, but then if you've got other things and ideas floating around, it's like quite hard to kind of you know compartmentalize, basically.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and I think you're right. It's just like his conversation was entrepreneurship, to do it well, is all consuming. So whether you've got kids, whether you've got elderly parents, whether you're trying to get to the Olympics, you probably can't do all at 100%. 100%. So tell me, when you've got all of these ideas floating around, what made you go all in on this one? What was the problem and what was the data that told you that this is the one?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no, that is a good question. I I think it came down back to the essence of like what it was unlocking. So the concept of freedom, then I guess, was like, wow, this is actually like an opportunity whereby people don't need to be so reliant on, you know, their nine to five and they can actually make supplementary income. So to be honest, like that I think spoke loud volumes to both of us, which was like, this is an incredible kind of you know, addition to society in that people can do this and there is a bit of a you know additional income stream that can be created. So it was alignment to your values pretty much straight away. I think so. Like if I I kind of like look inwards, it's like there was probably a little bit of that. And and of course, you know, I I've always loved to travel. I, you know, saw that there would be a huge opportunity within this category, you know, the kind of concept was that Airbnb would continue to grow. There was an obvious problem that needed solving, which I could relate to because I'd kind of lived through that, you know, exact problem, which obviously is not really revolutionary, but uh yeah, having experienced the problem firsthand, you're like, cool, well, if only you could do this, and if only you could do that, and if only you know you could deliver on these kind of initiatives and you could improve the experience so much more, et cetera, et cetera. So it was like, cool, you know, genuine problem, huge opportunity, big addressable market, you know, awesome category. It was like, right, I guess we're going all in.
SPEAKER_00:And was it purely focused on Airbnb at that point, or was it any short-term company?
SPEAKER_01:I think it was really just around Airbnb, to be honest. It was interesting. So basically, yeah, I quit my job. I was working as a yeah, equity analyst, uh, so more in the finance game. And I then had three months of gardening leave, which I was getting paid for. So I was like, wow, this is fantastic. This is our seed capital, like it's all we need, like we don't need any more than this, and we'll be off to the off to the races, basically. But basically, you know, whilst I was working, Billy was obviously doing some some tinkering around and you know, figuring out different ways and her in terms of how we would obviously actually execute the strategy and you know the operations attached to you know what turns out to be a very operationally complex business. And then I was doing a lot of research in terms of like what was happening overseas. So there was a lot of activity that was actually bubbling up in terms of the US as well as Europe, which was like, oh wow, this is cool. And if anything, it was almost like validation, which was like, hey, it exists elsewhere, like there's companies that are raising capital to kind of seize the trend. So I was like, well, that's a kind of no-brainer. Like, you know, Australia is a bit of a laggard. So it was just uh it's almost like a de-risked opportunity, really. Little did we know.
SPEAKER_00:Looking back on that, is that almost a cheat code in entrepreneurial ventures is to not try and create something from scratch but to follow some sort of playbook?
SPEAKER_01:I think so. It's certainly my style. I think it's really just like cool, you don't need to reinvent the wheel. You know, I find myself doing a lot of research of different companies, and I really go quite deep in terms of trying to unpick them and understand exactly you know the back end and how does this make money and what are the kind of components that then obviously deliver the service and you know what's the secret source and trying to uncover all the little nuggets, which is kind of you know exactly what we did with home time in the early days. So I actually flew over to Europe. I was like, cool, I'm just gonna go tee up conversations with all the comparables overseas and just pretend like, you know, hey, how's it going? I I'm I'm keen to like, you know, maybe be your city manager and extract the golden insights. Yeah, there was a bit of that, and uh that was uh espionage. Bit of espionage, you know, a bit of uh what is it, plagiarism is the the biggest form form of flattery. And actually, funny story. Meanwhile, Billy, you know, he was tasked with uh serving our first and only customer. And uh yeah, that's the story for another day.
SPEAKER_00:But basically Was he literally like cleaning the room and everything?
SPEAKER_01:He was supposed to clean the room, but I think he got really excited by the fact that we would scope out like shared workspaces and like you know, he could play ping pong with uh the new CTO that we found. So he was supposed to clean the room, but uh he failed to clean the room, and our one and only customer arrived back to a very unclean room and a very unhappy wife.
SPEAKER_00:True entrepreneur. I should have just outsourced it from the start. Absolutely. So fast forward a fair few years, and I could imagine a lot of blood and sweat and tears. You scaled home time, you acquired several competitors, had a team of 90 across five countries. When you talk about secret source to scale a business like that, what do you put your secret source down to?
SPEAKER_01:I don't think there's like a secret source per se. I think where we had success was really digging deep in terms of like having a very good understanding of the market and obviously the different comparables and like how other businesses were doing things and really trying to kind of cherry pick different ideas and different permutations of the ways that you can approach business and you know deliver on the kind of customer value proposition and try to package it up to such that we're kind of taking the best of both worlds and then you know implementing all the kind of you know little nuggets for ourselves. But I think it really comes down to having a clear understanding as to where you're going, what you're building, and really having the best team and getting that those team rallied around, you know, kind of the goals and the execution. But I think it also comes down to you know a lot of luck as well. Like uh we were very lucky to have, you know, as an example, our first kind of institutional investors that came on board. Like they were, you know, an absolute slam dunk in terms of investment party or like you know, partner that then came and and joined us for the ride. Without them, I think, you know, we would have been thrashing around and we would would have probably made a lot more mistakes, etc. So yeah, no real secret source, just a lot of like perseverance, a lot of hitting your head against the wall, and every so often a little lightning strike of luck and uh eventually the stars all align.
SPEAKER_00:That's very humble. And I want to explore timing with you too, because I think it was really interesting if that you jumped on Airbnb and saw that opportunity pretty early. We're also seeing that at the moment, especially in e-commerce, around aligning to AI and AI models and either picking one or being neutral to taking them all on. How important do you think it was that you got on board the Airbnb train early? Because there comes risk with that, doesn't there, in terms of you are tied to Airbnb's success.
SPEAKER_01:100%. So our first initiative was to basically make best friends with the country head of Australia of Airbnb. So we we're like, okay, cool. Well, you know, we don't have that many technical capabilities in terms of like software development. We did find a, you know, a bunch of developers that obviously helped us build the infrastructure and the tech to kind of run everything. But uh we're like, hey, I think we're pretty likable, and you know, we could we can make friends pretty easily. So let's just like make it our biggest priority, become like best friends with Airbnb, and then you know, they'll look after us and uh maybe they'll acquire us, who knows? Um, but yeah, essentially became best friends with the Airbnb group of Sydney, and uh they were a fantastic kind of small and nimble team, all you know, young and hustling and you know doing what we're doing, but just at a significantly greater scale. And yeah, I think we we got in there pretty early, and we were actually like Airbnb's first official partner in Australia, which was obviously a pretty cool achievement. Um, and I think that was just testament to like, cool, I guess we'll just you know have as many beers as possible with with Airbnb and and coffees and breakfasts and uh try and just uh yeah form the best relationships, basically. But I think, yeah, very important.
SPEAKER_00:Getting all your secrets is like go for beers with influential people and go pretend to be an employee for your competitors.
SPEAKER_01:Nice. Let's let's not this uh cast this out too widely. We wouldn't want anyone to you know uncover all the secret secret nuggets.
SPEAKER_00:So home time is the genesis for what's to come, but what was the moment? Because like I said, you're still pretty young, growing business, there's still probably a lot of fuel in that tank. What was the moment where you said, actually, it's time to sell out, move on? Tell me how that came about.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so I think for me, like the whole entry into entrepreneurship through home time was a fascinating experience. I was kind of instantly hooked, and really the concept of obviously like formulating amazing team and you know getting people in different areas of like core expertise was like fascinating. And then basically kind of taking a step back and then watching the engine kind of in motion and obviously, you know, the business, it's really just a factor of the people that you have within it. And uh you see that take shape and you're like, oh wow, that's really fascinating and very cool. So I think I was kind of hooked from the start. Uh not to say that there wasn't some tough times and uh, you know, we had to dig deep in a number of occasions. But for me it was all about like designing the framework and the kind of infrastructure or the people to basically enable business building. And it probably was never just like about home time per se. Like obviously I was passionate about the space, but I was probably more passionate that just about entrepreneurship and business building. So what I was really amazed by, like, probably at like year three, was the kind of understanding of wow, you can get like a whole bunch of smart people in the room, and uh they can all run towards a problem that we're hopefully passionate about, and you can actually make amazing progress. And it certainly wasn't me like moving the mountains, it was really just a function of smart people kind of executing in a in a solid direction, obviously having the support of investors and all the rest. So I was like quite hooked on the concept of not, I guess, multipreneurship, but it was more like I kind of always had the ambition to create other businesses. So it was never just like, hey, this is gonna be my one and only baby, and that that's it. It was like, well, this is fantastic, like this is first hand insight into business building and entrepreneurship. And for me, it was like there's a formula approach to this, right? Which is like, cool, like, you know, get the core team, people execute, tell the story well, have Clear kind of goal and understanding of what you're solving, and then you know, away it goes.
SPEAKER_00:So I was I know you put it like that, but this is your first entrepreneurial journey, and we know that entrepreneurs aren't always comfortable with taking other people on the journey when it comes to teamwork, it's not often natural. So I think that's really interesting that that's an area that you've actually enjoyed and found yourself good at. What do you think made you different from other entrepreneurs who are very much solo like, I've got a mission, get out of my way.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, uh I'm sure they can be successful as well. But I I I think like the realization is if you want to make meaningful progress and actually build something of significant value as well as size and scale, it's certainly a team effort, right? So it's just a matter of getting the right people in the room and yeah, everyone executing accordingly. Because um, if it was just me doing that, then uh I don't think the business would have gone gone very far at all.
SPEAKER_00:So, what was the moment where you went? Yeah. I think I've done my time, we've got this to a point where I'm happy and I'm happy to go do something else.
SPEAKER_01:100%. So I think for me it was all about like, cool, well, what is the infrastructure? What does the team need to look like? I was never of the opinion that hey, I just wanted to run this forever. I wanted to basically design the framework and the engine room such that the business could run without me, right? So I think I achieved that probably at the like the year six mark, maybe. And it was like cool, like you know, everyone's playing to their strengths, the business is look, it it wasn't always going up into the right. Most of the time it wasn't actually. Like obviously COVID was like a massive event for us, and we basically had to rebuild the entire business from scratch. So I'm talking like this was you know easy and everything just worked. It certainly, it certainly wasn't like that, but but I I guess I always had the goal of yeah, not being the business and always trying to work on the business. And it got to a point where we had fantastic investors, we had like an exceptional management team, you know, great leaders across kind of all the key competencies. There was, you know, I guess I I leaned in a lot of the time to like capital raising, investor relations, trying to find the right team members to then fill, you know, crucial spots. And there was a stage where we had just completed like a pretty material capital raise. We just got like one of the the all-time greats from Airbnb who joined as like a COO. And uh it was like, cool, well, I think um, you know, the the foundations here are laid. I think I'm done. So it certainly was the opportunity to at least explore what alternative things might look like. But certainly like you've got to bring people along the journey, and I had to kind of obviously make sure that our investors were supportive of that and they understood because I guess it's probably less traditional parts, right? It's like uh normally, you know, the person who starts it finishes it. But I would probably say that that's not really that good either, because like just because you start the business, are you the right person to be running like you know, at its peak it was a 200 person team? Yeah, I'm I'm not the right person to be in all those management meetings, etc. etc. Which I certainly learnt about myself, right? And it's kind of the evolution in terms of like what's next. But I got the most passion and energy probably in that zero to one like early hustle phase where we're trying to figure things out and we're not quite sure and there's no real proven path. And then obviously it evolved into more of a cool, that's you know, we've got ongoing monthly or weekly management meetings and we're just executing to the plan.
SPEAKER_00:And that's probably where I that doesn't align to a freedom goal, does it?
SPEAKER_01:May May maybe not, maybe not. But yeah, essentially that was the kind of catalyst, and obviously, you know, it was very thankful that the board and investor group, as well as team, you know, including Billy, who obviously, you know, he was acting in in the CEO role anyway, quite a a little bit ahead of like me officially leaving the kind of management seat. But yeah, it was uh, you know, very thankful to the team for essentially allowing me to kind of be able to pursue other interests and passions.
SPEAKER_00:So, what's the first thing you do when you go, okay, walk out that door? You're an entrepreneurial person. I I can imagine that you've got ideas stored in the back of your head. Do you dive straight into them?
SPEAKER_01:That's a good question. So for me, I did take a little bit of time out, which was actually nice, and uh I am appreciative of the opportunity to be able to do that. So we had just had a geez, newborn son, but he was about one, one year old at that stage, and um my wife's also Zimbabwean, so we were we're like, well, you know what, we've been on the uh the journey for a long time. Let's at least give ourselves the opportunity to take a little bit of time out. So we went back to Zimbabwe actually, and I spent my days. We bought a little golf cart. My son was like golf obsessed, so I I probably spent a good three to six months driving him around and upskilling his his golf capabilities, which has probably surpassed his dad's uh skill levels.
SPEAKER_00:So that was uh a really good was his first word a swear word if he's following you around the golf course all day.
SPEAKER_01:Uh look, I I'm trying to be you know politically correct on this podcast. Uh it may have been, but uh I'm not entirely sure.
SPEAKER_00:Love it. All right, so that is the genesis, and I promise to everyone this does tie back to e-commerce. But I I just think your entrepreneurial journey, we've got a lot of founders who listen to our podcast, and some of what you were talking about there, I want to dive into the systems that you're creating because you said that you're a zero-to-one founder, and I think we can all take a lot from that, especially when you come at it from a systemized approach rather than I've got an idea, let's hope it works. So, where did that lead you to then in terms of what's next?
SPEAKER_01:Great. So basically, yeah, a little bit of time on the golf course and uh a a little bit of like, you know, really being quite deliberate as to like how I want to allocate my time, right? Uh so it's like, cool, I'm in a privileged position now where I actually get to pursue those those other interests. So basically, uh about six months ago launched what is called Freedom Ventures. And the concept behind Freedom Ventures is that it's a venture studio slash holding company, Hold Co., with the goal of basically, you know, building up a portfolio of ownership across, you know, a portfolio of businesses, basically. And the businesses are essentially designed to be, yeah, there's a framework in terms of like business building design, et cetera. So more of like a formulaic approach to spitting up a new company. And uh instead of kind of chasing, you know, the uh the unicorn uh blitz scaling dreams and obviously, you know, raising copious amounts of capital, et cetera, et cetera. Not that that wasn't obviously helpful for the path that we were at home time, but uh this is more around the concept of actually business building these days looks quite a lot different to what it did, you know, 10 years ago back in 2015. So leveraging all the new tools and the no-codes and the AI, you know, acceleration and all that kind of stuff to then basically try and you know build a portfolio of businesses that are more capital light, high kind of pathway to cash flow. So instead of going on the fundraising treadmill and burning, you know, money for months and years on end, it's like, well, can we design businesses such that there's an accelerated pathway to cash flow and they can be less capital intensive such that you can preserve more ownership across the business and you can actually get paid along the way in terms of extracting dividends out of the business as opposed to kind of waiting for that, you know, glorious liquidity event, which you know gets pushed out more and more so, right? Ten years is the average kind of tenure. So um that's the concept.
SPEAKER_00:And um they're making cash along the way. Yep. And they've got a system, you can systemize them. What are the key categories that you're looking at, or could it be across any category?
SPEAKER_01:It's uh it's quite versatile, actually. It can be across any category. At the moment, I actually have two kind of components, which is there's build and then there's also buy. The build is very much uh targeted at yeah, capital light, uh, more like productized services businesses and delivering outcomes, really. So, you know, run remote is an example of a business that I founded, which is not a revolutionary product, but it is delivering on a clear problem that needs to be solved. And uh you're delivering like good outcomes that are kind of binary, such that it's like you deliver this outcome, very happy customer, you deliver a bad outcome, unhappy customer, rightfully so, do it again type thing. So that's the kind of framework that I have at least for now been kind of exploring. Uh obviously things change, but uh yeah, that's the methodology and the approach so far.
SPEAKER_00:What happens when 87 stores, one Shopify site, and a whole lot of disconnected data walk into a TRM? There's unfortunately no funny punchline here. For Intersport, it meant mixed sales, low reports, and a lot of guest work. Each store had its own data, none of it talked into Clavio. They helped unify it all, online and in-store, so that InterSport could finally track behaviour, person its offers, and hit the right customer at the right time. The result was one that any cracking sports coach would be proud of. DRM-driven online sales were up nearly five times, and there was a 350% increase in returning customer rate. To learn how Clavio helps multi-store brands like InterSport grow smarter, visit Clavio.com forward slash AU. And I want to dive into Run Remote in a moment, but before we do, I just want to unpack this approach and this framework a little bit more because I think there's so much to be learnt there. We obviously talked around operationally light, talked about cash flow, talked about clear outcomes, good, bad. When it comes to tools, tech, team, are there any non-negotiables for you in those businesses that fit that framework?
SPEAKER_01:I mean, I think as an example, like uh having distributed teams is something that I'm passionate about. So even back at home time, it was like, let's not have like a huge HQ and like have a hundred people arrive at the front office, right? The concept was all about like how do you leverage all the tools and technology to maximize productivity as well as capital efficiency. So distributed teams are something that I've been very passionate about for a long time in terms of like how do you find the best remote talent across the world. Obviously, you know, you're solving for cost arbitrage, but more importantly, if you can kind of narrow the gap in terms of quality threshold and get as close a comparison to like an onshore equivalent, that's really, really quite interesting, right? So I think remote and distributed teams and also like empowering the best teams is one, then it's obviously like leveraging, yeah, all the kind of awesome tools that are made available to us these days, right? So like I think we're just in an awesome time in terms of entrepreneurship where there's so many great, you know, SaaS tools as well as no-cools, as well as you can hire someone from anywhere in the world and there's platforms that facilitate how they get paid, and you know, you can do that compliantly. So it's certainly, I guess if you cast your mind back to how entrepreneurship might have been back in the day, I think we're in a pretty envious position. And then it's really just like trying to capitalize on those trends, right? And then use them to your advantage in terms of like modern business building and doing so in an accelerated way, but like more importantly, capital efficient and I guess productive way.
SPEAKER_00:From a tech perspective, are you a builder? Do you ever build your custom tech or are you just whatever's off the shelf we take and we use?
SPEAKER_01:You know, I I've been having lots of great conversations with uh Mr. Andrew Ford about vibe coding on the weekends. So you know, we we do that for fun. He's a complete nerd. He's actually uh he's he's quite a he's quite a clever nerd, I will get it.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, he's an incredibly clever nerd. I love we always talk about how much he fiddles and plays, and I'm like, how do you have time for all this? He's just endlessly curious.
SPEAKER_01:I think uh I wish I was probably better at it. I could could definitely be yeah, more advanced, but um yeah, certainly very fascinated by that world and yeah, forever listening to kind of all the the latest and greatest nuke podcasts and you know AI deep dives and all that kind of stuff. And I think like experimentation is key. I think we're obviously in this really fast-paced world where AI is moving every single day. There seems to be like a new a new announcement and a new kind of model, etc. And I don't believe that anyone's uh uh a pro at it. Obviously, there might be some people that claim to be, but it's actually a bit of a a level playing field where it's this like a fascinating new technology and everyone's kind of at the starting point, and it's really about like how do you allocate your time to then yeah, experiment and learn and uh upskill as much as possible. And I think it's super important for everyone to be kind of investing their time into that because um yeah, it just makes things way more efficient, and you can obviously get way more leverage. Like that's actually a concept I think about a lot, which is leverage. It's just like okay, how do you how do you get things happening without like overinvesting your time? Is there ways that you can like set up systems and processes and design such that things can happen in the background with maximum leverage and uh yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And a lot of it is a mindset shift, isn't it? And uh, we talked a lot with James Johnson from Shopify around this, and he was like, There's one simple principle. Every time you do something, just ask, could AI do this better? And yes, it may take you five times longer this time, but it'll if you crack it, and most of the times you will crack it, it will revolutionize and create a moat around your business.
SPEAKER_01:Most definitely. 100%. I I think something that I think about at like the venture studio level is definitely back to like having those really core competency, like talent experts within the the core team to be able to then like build, you know, multiple prototypes or multiple products. So you always want to have, well, I think in this day and age, you definitely want to have product people, but product people or like technical people probably look different to what they might have back in the day. So back in the day, it's obviously having like the best software engineer can actually you know add leverage and like you know increase productivity. Whereas now it's like, okay, well, we need like absolute like AI expert, someone who's gonna be you know vibe coding over the weekend, and there's just really just gonna throw themselves all of that in terms of how to get maximum output from all the tools that we have at our disposal, right?
SPEAKER_00:It was only less than five years ago we were telling kids to go actually go to university or go study coding because that is the future. Because we're looking at robotics. Like, well, actually you don't need to actually study coding anymore. It's all out there for you.
SPEAKER_01:Uh it is it is it is pretty wild in terms of how quickly things can be disrupted. I mean, yeah, software engineers obviously they they will be expedited in that the ones that will be leveraging AI, of which I'm sure most of them will be you can be a 10x developer from what you were before, and you could probably build products, you know. Uh the whole rise of this whole like solo or single person unicorn, all that kind of stuff, obviously a little bit far-fetched, but uh the kind of philosophy is is correct.
SPEAKER_00:So let's talk about run remote because I think you played it down before saying that it's a model has been before. But what I really like about it, especially as someone who ran a recruitment business in a previous life, was the approach of outsourcing talent and having a remote team, but focusing on finding the top talent in that region and having them as part of your team, not having a middleman. That was the thing that stood out for me. Was that the genesis of the idea?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think the genesis was probably again like living through that experience and then building an example prototype at home time, right? So at home time, like one of our biggest components in terms of how we, you know, evolved and had our team structure was that we had a really large and significant kind of overseas team. So we had people in the Philippines, we had a really good team in Latin America, Buenos Aires, as well as South Africa, right? So it was like, cool, uh, I know the kind of South African market really well. There's some really good marketing talent, so let's do that. And we actually also had a guy uh working out of Lisbon. So it was very much a global team. So got firsthand insight in terms of like the efficiencies and the benefits. And for us, it was very much like, you know, we just were focused 100% on quality. And uh we certainly had some overseas team members that were probably running circles around some of our onshore team members, right? So got to experience that first hand. And then it was really like, well, you know, in terms of in thinking about freedom ventures and like what's a potential business to start. It was like, all right, um, I guess, you know, this is quasi-recrument. I'm going from like Airbnb sheets to uh recruitment. So I don't know if I'm picking the most glamorous kind of fields, but it was really just like, hey, this is a massive TAM. Every single business under the sun needs this. Like, it's certainly not a strategy just to have 100% of your team onshore sitting in an office. So uh it's solving a clear problem is a genuine need. Um and there was there's really strong economics actually attached to the business. So I mean our model is very much like this whole age-old kind of industry of business process outsourcing, right? BPO, I think that's a model that's existed for a long time. It's probably got a bit of a bad rap because maybe quality is a little bit questionable, and uh there's a genuine like lack of transparency in that market whereby it's like, hey Nate, I'll find you a whole bunch of people, but I'm not gonna give you true insight in terms of what they're getting paid. Uh, you're just gonna pay me, I'm gonna sort everything out, happy days. You know, there's always a pretty significant gap between what you're paying and what they're getting paid. Yeah. And that's like it leads to obviously inferior quality, and it's obviously not really a good outcome across any party, right? The the talent losers, you're losing. The only one who's winning is the agency. So we wanted to flip that around. And yeah, very much like I wanted to build a business that I would be a customer of. So I guess within the concept of freedom ventures, it's like, all right, well, we want to try and build multiple businesses, right? And obviously, every single business, just like we spoke about with home time, the success of that business is a function of the team. So it's like, well, this would be a cheat code if we could actually have a business that finds exceptional people, which we could then use, obviously, to be able to like fuel and like turbocharge the additional businesses that we'll hopefully build or buy within the portfolio. So it was yeah, an interesting one where I was sitting at the golf course in Zimbabwe and I was like, I I can actually do this from anywhere. You know, uh let's let's just put put my head down and spin up a website and see if there's uh demand for the product. So that was that.
SPEAKER_00:The market is shifting. Costs are climbing, and the pressure to do more with less is very real. But when resources are tight, you can rely on Shopify, the platform that's consistently first with new capabilities. Shopify invests significantly in RD and drops more than 150 updates every year, evolving with you and absorbing complexity so that you can focus on what moves your business forward. From AI-powered insights to the world's best converting checkout, Shopify is designed for the next year of commerce, helping you sell more, scale faster, and future-proof your brand. Build for what is next with Shopify. Visit Shopify for Enterprise to learn more. Pretty incredible start because you've got businesses such as Bailey Nelson now relying on Run Remote to build their teams. Was that a big shift for them? It was actually.
SPEAKER_01:I think they had, you know, it was interesting to me that I think like in terms of like, again, frameworks of like businesses that you want to start or be a part of. I've read a lot, which is like, you know, play to your unfair advantage and your your kind of true insights and all that kind of stuff. Do things that otherwise people might not have the same capacity, etc. So, you know, a large part of Save Freedom Ventures is like serving founders as an example. It's like, well, I understand that I was a founder, I know the pain points across different verticals of value, right? So obviously this is just hiring, so it's just one component. But yeah, like, you know, if you're the ICP and you were it, you can basically, you know, deliver a good product or service to, you know, the profile that you really intricately understand. So as an example, I guess being part of the kind of founder startup ecosystem for circa 10 years, like you obviously make a big network. One of them was Bailey Nelson. I was really good friends with one of the founders. He, you know, was experiencing pretty high cash burn and I think having a bit of a hard time with yeah, investors, maybe just kind of different stage of business, et cetera. And obviously, for him, it was going to be a worthwhile and interesting experiment to obviously try and realize some cost benefits. But of course, they just needed to maintain quality thresholds, right? So they couldn't have that start to slip because then it's a little bit like counterintuitive, like one step forward, three steps back, basically. So yeah, he was the first client, and we basically experimented just in terms of like helping him find talent. That kind of, you know, was great for me because I could then run the process and you know, back to the drawing board where I now had no team and it was just me. I was like, okay, this is interesting. Where where's all my team members? Back to zero. I was like, I guess I can't delegate this to anyone. That's uh that's highly unfortunate. Even though you own a remote team. Well, I I've I I very quickly found team members and uh you know, created an incentive structure such that they were motivated to to find awesome other team members. So that was actually uh really fun and interesting. But uh yeah, we have essentially I think helped them with about thirty team members. Wow. And I think the cost savings have been pretty significant. They've definitely switched very much into like Ebata positive mode of like pretty decent quantum. And I think it's been a really positive shift in terms of their investor sentiments and obviously ability to kind of continue to execute, raise more capital, etc. So yeah, I think uh it's it's it's an awesome kind of case study, right? And then it's really just about okay, applying the same methodology a across all the other businesses that we're serving. So that was the first kind of client base. And yeah, we found ourselves interestingly actually serving just a multitude of e-commerce clients, maybe because that was like a case study, and then the next e-commerce client came, and then there's obviously uh referrals from other businesses where you deliver good value, and they're like, Oh mate, I'd love to introduce you to my friends and more friends, etc. etc. So that's kind of how it's all evolved, and obviously the relevancy in terms of like how we've met and and hopefully your audience in terms of uh the listeners. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:When it comes to e-commerce roles and skills, where do you normally find yourself starting to get those efficiencies? Are there any particular areas or skills that you start with before moving out?
SPEAKER_01:I think we are probably finding ourselves providing more value across the technical, hard-to-fill roles. So I think a typical e-commerce business will come and say, hey, well, you know, we uh need support across meta in terms of like paid marketing, you know, uh that's obviously uh where a significant portion of our spend is being allocated. We need to, you know, basically continue to grow that team, but we need people that are super smart and understand exactly how to leverage that universe to its highest potential. So a lot of those types of roles, also a lot of like technical roles in terms of like, you know, Shopify developers or Webflow developers in terms of you know all that kind of stuff. Yeah. Really kind of broad space set of roles, but I think the underarching theme is more technical versus general. So we certainly are not like doing data entry roles by any means. It's like, hey, we need like an exceptional hub spot manager or like a you know gun developer uh full stack across, you know, this, this, and that. So they are, you know, every every everyone's a new challenge, but uh it's interesting actually the the kind of scale benefits because you have then done multiple of the same role, then you can cross-sell and it actually becomes a lot easier at scale.
SPEAKER_00:And one of the promises that you go out with is finding the top two percent of talent? Ah, top top one percent. Come on. Top one percent.
unknown:Wow.
SPEAKER_01:Hey, you gotta you gotta double down on quality.
SPEAKER_00:How do you how do you guarantee that? Especially when you're talking to those technical skills, which even finding any talent, like when you start getting very specific around platforms or languages, for example, how do you not only just find people who can do the job but find the top one percent? Good question.
SPEAKER_01:And obviously it's been, you know, an ongoing iterative process. I I think for us, again, it comes down to like understanding exactly what you know problem you're solving and then what your ICP needs and what like kind of obsessing around like customer value. So it's like, okay, well, how good would it be if you could actually just double down on the best and like find someone an absolute rock star and do so without them having to lift a finger? Like that's a it's a pretty damn good offering, and all the whilst they can save, you know, I don't know, 60, 70% on payroll costs next month. And you know, that investment is like a one-month payback period, you're like, well, that's an absolute slam dunk no-brainer. But uh again, how do you actually deliver on that promise? So there's been a lot of investment into that in terms of like really doubling down into the talent threshold and making sure that we can like continue to find the gems. We have a pretty extensive, you know, process, which obviously involves a number of like hoop jumping and lots of assessments, lots of scoring, lots of interviews. We also work with the companies in terms of like just getting a lot of like technical assessments that are you know very particular to their business. So we might put our talent through general kind of interviews and general assessments, but then we'll work with the particular business, which is like, okay, well, let's mimic like a day in the life of X and let's like get them to do like a typical example of like what you know your your business might might need or like what a day-to-day kind of job is required. And then yeah, we'll work with them to kind of put them through that assessment. And then yeah, the top one percent, you know, out of a thousand we get uh what is it, hundred? Is that is that the is that the math? Ten. Ten. Terrible, terrible. Never do never do on the fly math so that's a good thing. You better make sure you get a CFO. I need I need a CFO. I'm missing my old CFO, absolutely. But the the numbers probably look a bit wonky.
SPEAKER_00:Well, speaking of CFO, so in your model, the talent becomes part of the team. So business, say Bailey Nelson, actually hires the talent as part of the team, just like you would talent here. How do you make money as run remote in that process?
SPEAKER_01:We just do it for the love of the game, you know, a love of entrepreneurship. We charge a one-time fee. So unlike the other kind of agencies that will obviously, you know, mark up every month, we just basically to keep it really simple, we charge uh a one-time placement fee, which is obviously only payable when the talent joins. Typical kind of recruitment, I guess, business model in that we have a replacement guarantee of 90 days if in the in a very unlikely event that it doesn't work out, basically.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, great. Last question on that. If we've got founders listening to this saying, I love the idea of reducing costs, finding the gaps in our team in terms of skill sets, especially those technical areas, and having a team that can run independently. What do you say are the traits that know that that founder is set up for success to take on this model? Like, is there anything that you like that actually don't go down this path yet until you get this sorted internally?
SPEAKER_01:I think interestingly, like COVID was a massive accelerant within this category. So I think, you know, back in the day, like we were absolute like remote advocates, and I was like studying all the different uh principles of like how best to set up a remote team. Went to like a lot of like remote working conferences as an example, and it was really interesting back then actually, which was like this was in 2018, I think it was. There was a conference in Bali, and there was about 200 people that attended there, and it was all like the the big names. Shopify was there, Zapier. But like I guess the the first move is in terms of like fully distributed remote teams, which sounds like you know ridiculous then. But like back then it was like we were making predictions as to I wonder what percentage of the workforce will be like embracing remote working. And it was always like, oh, I guess you know, I'm sure it'll be a big uh take up and uh people will see the benefits. And I mean that again as well, sorry to digress, but that came back to the concept of freedom, which was like I didn't want to have a business that we walked into and we were chained to that desk. It was like, well, if we can actually, you know, invest into a business culture that can work anywhere, like that's awesome. And obviously there's gonna be so much engagement from the team because that is a privilege that doesn't really exist elsewhere, right? So yeah, I was a big advocate from day one, and then obviously COVID happened, and then suddenly that big novelty became everyone's uh access. Exactly. So we we were fortunate in that we had a bit of a head start to really understand exactly how that all works and and that world. But I guess to to answer your question, you do need to have the philosophy as to like how best to set up a remote team. Do you need to have like the best working practices and principles around how do you engage someone that lives on the other side of the world? How do you make sure that they have clear, you know, goals and guide rails in terms of, you know, what is what is a successful outcome look like? What is um deliverable, like what does success look like by the end of the week, etc.? So those types of rituals. I feel like most businesses are pretty well versed now with respect to, you know, remote working practices. So again, coming down to like the accelerant of COVID, which is like, well, most businesses appreciate that, like, of course you're gonna have people working, you know, in other jurisdictions. So I think it's been a really kind of interesting realm for you know distributed businesses or businesses that help build distributed teams. There's been a huge trajectory in terms of uh ramp up, which is again playing to like all right, frameworks, instruction, and principles. Like, I don't see that trend kind of slowing down anytime soon. If anything, it'll only continue to increase and accelerate. The market size is massive, you can get a small percentage of that, and that's an awesome kind of business to be a part of.
SPEAKER_00:It feels like it is snapping back in some parts and that there's the callback to the office for some companies. Yeah. But you've either got to be deliberately distributed or deliberately combined. You know what I mean? So it's it's now back to a choice, isn't it? And then definitely go to distributed. You've got to set those rituals and those processes up to involve everyone.
SPEAKER_01:100%. I I think like the the happy medium is probably like a hybrid setup because I think like if you are too strict in your mandate in that like everyone must return to their you know corporate chain desks, then you're just gonna get no talent whatsoever. I think we found your nightmare hit there.
SPEAKER_00:I think I think you've uncovered it. Dave, you've just had the most incredible journey so far, and I've learned a lot about entrepreneurship from you today, especially how to systemise it and how important it is to take team on that journey rather than just to kind of buckle down with your idea and charge through. So thank you for that. If people are keen to continue the conversation, especially around run remote and what that might look like for their team, what's the best way to get in touch with you?
SPEAKER_01:Thanks, Nate. Appreciate uh the kind words. But yeah, bet best way to get in touch with me is definitely on LinkedIn. So search me, Dave Thompson. It's a bit of a common name. Hopefully, I'll come up. Uh, we should be connected uh through mutual parties in the startup ecosystem. Otherwise, runremote.io is our is our website. Beautiful. Dave, thank you for joining us on Ad Descartes. Thanks, Nate. It's really uh great to be here and uh appreciate the invite.
SPEAKER_00:I speak with a lot of founders, and what struck me about Dave was his calmness and his focus. And I feel like he's got there because he has a systemized approach now to entrepreneurship, that he has seen to be successful, and he acknowledges that there is an essence of luck in that, but he knows the levers and the non-negotiables that he's looking for when starting businesses. By starting there, he's got clear guardrails on what he will get into and how he will operate those businesses. And that to me was a key takeout. Here are three lessons that I think anyone in e-commerce can take from that conversation with Dave. Remote work, whether you are hiring other people or you are the one doing the remote work, it just doesn't work without clear expectations. There is nothing that annoys me more than bosses who complain that their work from home or their remote teams are lazy or distracted. It's not their responsibility, it's your role to make sure that everyone has clear expectations, that they're held to those expectations. There are clear processes and rituals to support distributed collaboration and working together. It is so important that you are set up for success, not just as a remote worker, but as someone who manages remote working teams. There is not one party at fault when it goes bad. So that was a key thing. Remote work comes with clear expectations, and both parties have to be ready to be held to account for those. The second piece there was starting with technical roles that drive growth. A lot of the times when we think about employing remote teams, it's to take the repetitive tasks or the low skill tasks and ask another team to do it. But as Dave mentioned there, there is actually incredible talent, skilled talent, very specialized talent offshore, ready to be employed by your business. It's talent that we probably wouldn't find here in Australia. So I think that's really important that we flip our thinking when we think about a remote team, that it's not just picking up the easy work that we're doing, but actually adding to our skills in our team by finding those unicorns or those specialists that we wouldn't be able to find here in Australia. And of course, being able to bring them into the team without paying overs. And the third thing, and I think this is important for both founders and operators, is that systemization beats hustle for sustainable growth. If there's anything that annoys the hell out of me, it's hustle culture. And sometimes it's because I don't know if I'm not built that way. I've got a great lifestyle business here and I enjoy what I do. But there are people who love the hustle, but it is not sustainable if you are hustling for years and years on end. I love Dave's approach. He knows exactly on the types of businesses that work for him. Productized services, fast paths to cash flow, capital efficiency. It's all about deliberate rejection of scale-at-all cost thinking. Key for him is knowing that he is creating businesses that have positive cash flow and can pay you along the way, that you're not waiting for some distant, hopeful payout in the future. By taking that approach, he's got his destiny in his own hands. Sure, you might not scale as fast, but it is sustainable growth. So if you feel like you're spinning, it might be time to take a step back and look at systemization for your business or what you're working on to understand whether you can take some of that hustle out and think smarter, whether that is AI, whether that's offshore teams, whether that's cutting out some of the processes, how can we do things smarter, not just hustling? That's it for this week. Bit of a different episode, but I hope you enjoyed it and took some lessons back into your business. If you want to discuss this further, please come and join us in the Add to Cart community. We have over 500 e-commerce professionals in there who are sharing tips, ideas, questions all day, every day about e-commerce. I'm sure if you've got questions around how people are setting up their teams, both locally and distributed teams, that would be a great place to kickstart that conversation. Head on over to add to cart.com.au and apply to join the Ad to Cart community. Also, if you haven't already and you enjoyed that episode, please hit subscribe wherever you are listening, whether that be YouTube, Spotify, or Apple, and we'll keep bringing you more great e commerce content. Until next time.