Dave Thompson, founder of Run Remote and Hometime, has built and operated businesses across ecommerce, marketplaces and venture studios, and what stood out wasn’t a tactic, it was a mindset. He kept coming back to one word: leverage. Designing businesses so they scale through systems, distributed teams and smart tooling, not just headcount. 

In this Playbook, we revisit Dave’s philosophy and connect it with lessons from Alice Williams (Ovira), Damien Smith (Boozebud) and Serene Lim (Gellae). All very different operators, all solving the same problem: how to grow without just throwing more people at it.

In Today’s Playbook:

• Why hiring is often a reflex, and what to question before you post the job ad
• How Dave Thompson designs businesses around leverage, not headcount
• Why distributed teams and modern tools create capital efficiency at scale
• How Ovira restructured roles to remove handoffs and speed up decision-making
• Why shared tech architecture prevents duplicated teams as you grow
• How Gellae uses automation to remove repetitive work without killing creativity

Connect with Dave Thompson
Explore Run Remote and Hometime
RunRemote’s main episode
Ovira’s episode
BoozBud’s episode
Gellae’s episode

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