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Davis Smith

Founder & Chairman, Cotopaxi · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

founderexecutive@davismsmith ↗LinkedIn ↗cotopaxi.com ↗

Davis Smith is the founder and former long-time CEO of Cotopaxi, an outdoor gear and apparel brand dedicated to eradicating extreme global poverty. Earlier in his career, he founded pool table retailer PoolTables.com as well as the Brazilian e-commerce startup Baby.com.br.

41statements → 14claims → 6claims resolved → 100%fully supported → 4.2/5average certainty → 1.88/5average debate potential → 4.3/5argument clarity · the sources → 1said about them ↓

6 supported 0 partly supported 0 contradicted 3 not yet assessed 5 not checkable as stated how the 14 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

3 predictions · 11 assertions · 3 opinions · 11 insights · 13 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 14 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 6 are resolved, 3 are not yet assessed, and 5 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Davis argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
Cotopaxi tripled revenue in two and a half years post-Bain investment
“We've more than tripled our revenue, you know, since they've invested two and a half years ago.”
Davis Smith Dec 15, 2023 ▶ 27:23 Davis Smith: From Selling $6M of Pool Tables to Scaling Cotopaxi to $150M in Revenues | E1095 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
100% certainty 3
100% certainty 4
none yet certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

Argument clarity: do they answer the question? how? →

4.3 / 5 directness 4.6 · coherence 4.6 · precision 4.1 · compression 3.6

redirected or did not address 3 of 46 assessed questions (7%). Watch them ▸

This is a score against a rubric. It is not a rank. Every host question → answer exchange is scored with names hidden on directness, coherence, precision and compression, 1–5 each, on meaning alone: disfluencies are ignored, and only raw unedited episodes count. This is the score that measures thought. Every scored exchange, scores shown → · The rubric and its checks →

How they sound: speaking style how? →

286 words/min while actually speaking · 21.1 um and uh per 1k words · 15.4 false starts per 1k · 26.6% of pauses land inside a clause

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 13,316 words across 1 episode of raw-level tape, transcribed verbatim with every um and uh kept, each one attributed only where the alignment onto our timed stream is unambiguous. These are measurements of speaking style. We do not rank them: across this corpus, fluency and argument quality are nearly uncorrelated (ρ≈0.2), and smooth talking does not signal clear thinking. How it's measured →

How the interview went all their pushback → series average →

Across 1 rated episode:

host pushback ▾ 4/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 2/10
setup questions received 40%

Everything Davis Smith said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Assertion Supported
Baby.com.br raised around $40M in venture capital
“At that point, we'd raised around forty million dollars in venture capital.”
Davis Smith Dec 15, 2023 ▶ 13:40 Davis Smith: From Selling $6M of Pool Tables to Scaling Cotopaxi to $150M in Revenues | E1095 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
Bain Capital bought out Cotopaxi's early investors
“Bank capital, they bought out a lot of our early investors and those early investors made a fantastic return.”
Davis Smith Dec 15, 2023 ▶ 27:16 Davis Smith: From Selling $6M of Pool Tables to Scaling Cotopaxi to $150M in Revenues | E1095 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Supported
Smith: Cotopaxi grew nearly 100% the year before he stepped down
“We'd grown a hundred percent almost the year before.”
Davis Smith Dec 15, 2023 ▶ 28:01 Davis Smith: From Selling $6M of Pool Tables to Scaling Cotopaxi to $150M in Revenues | E1095 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Smith pitched 100 investors before Kirsten Green backed Cotopaxi's seed round
“I pitched a hundred investors to get our first investor, you know, Kirsten green at forerunner. She backed us. I pitched a hundred investors in our first to raise that seed round.”
Davis Smith Dec 15, 2023 ▶ 30:38 Davis Smith: From Selling $6M of Pool Tables to Scaling Cotopaxi to $150M in Revenues | E1095 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Supported
Smith: Every major Cotopaxi funding round was led by female investors
“Our first major investor, Kirsten Green, Our second major investor, Ellie Wheeler from Great Craft. Our third major investor, Brooke Harley. Our last investor with Bain Capital, Cecilia Chao. There's a trend. Women are leading rounds in our business.”
Davis Smith Dec 15, 2023 ▶ 31:39 Davis Smith: From Selling $6M of Pool Tables to Scaling Cotopaxi to $150M in Revenues | E1095 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Supported
Smith: Cotopaxi grew 50% during recent fundraising process
“And even in the last 12 months since I started that fundraising process, we've think businesses increased 50%.”
Davis Smith Dec 15, 2023 ▶ 35:01 Davis Smith: From Selling $6M of Pool Tables to Scaling Cotopaxi to $150M in Revenues | E1095 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
Davis Smith: Board members Kirsten Green and Cecilia Chow help close key hires
“I go get Kirsten green or someone from our board, Cecilia Chow from bank capital to go jump on a call. And it's like, you know, they, I can help, I can attract and retain talent better.”
Davis Smith Dec 15, 2023 ▶ 40:09 Davis Smith: From Selling $6M of Pool Tables to Scaling Cotopaxi to $150M in Revenues | E1095 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Cotopaxi's slowest growth year in a decade was 2020 at 40%
“Our slowest growth year in the last 10 years was actually 20 20. We grew 40% that year, but we were profitable, significantly profitable, and it was because we tightened our belt in such a big way.”
Davis Smith Dec 15, 2023 ▶ 41:29 Davis Smith: From Selling $6M of Pool Tables to Scaling Cotopaxi to $150M in Revenues | E1095 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
Cotopaxi Donated 3% of 2020 Revenue to Impact Work
“We gave three percent of our revenues that year to impact work.”
Davis Smith Dec 15, 2023 ▶ 42:07 Davis Smith: From Selling $6M of Pool Tables to Scaling Cotopaxi to $150M in Revenues | E1095 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
Cotopaxi Uses OfficeVibe Daily to Measure Company Culture via Slack
“One of my favorites is actually a company called Office Vibe. It sends out polls through Slack, which we use Slack, and I measure Literally every day, I'm tracking and measuring our culture, and I can try, I can slice the data based on gender, based on tenure …”
Davis Smith Dec 15, 2023 ▶ 57:05 Davis Smith: From Selling $6M of Pool Tables to Scaling Cotopaxi to $150M in Revenues | E1095 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Davis Smith: Building Brands Inherently Encourages Founder Self-Centeredness
“As an entrepreneur, so much is about, it's about you, right? And especially as you build a brand or a platform like you'built, it's like a lot of is it about is about you.”
Davis Smith Dec 15, 2023 ▶ 1:08:36 Davis Smith: From Selling $6M of Pool Tables to Scaling Cotopaxi to $150M in Revenues | E1095 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Open · timeframe Dec 2028
Davis Smith confirms he will not return as CEO of Cotopaxi
“I'm not the CEO anymore, and I have a CEO that's, we got a major upgrade. When I left. And so I'm not going to be the CEO”
Davis Smith Dec 15, 2023 ▶ 1:12:09 Davis Smith: From Selling $6M of Pool Tables to Scaling Cotopaxi to $150M in Revenues | E1095 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
Smith financed early pool table business via eBay customer pre-orders
“What we decided to do is when we listed them on eBay, we said, 10 week lead time, custom made, hardwood pool table, 10 weeks. You know, a lot of people probably are like, there's no way I'm waiting 10 weeks, but other people are like, hey, I'm building my hous…”
Davis Smith Dec 15, 2023 ▶ 5:04 Davis Smith: From Selling $6M of Pool Tables to Scaling Cotopaxi to $150M in Revenues | E1095 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
Smith: PoolTables.com was entirely bootstrapped without venture capital
“My cousin and I you know, we'd spent about six years building this pool table business. It was bootstrapped, you know, no venture money, very early digitally native brand”
Davis Smith Dec 15, 2023 ▶ 9:00 Davis Smith: From Selling $6M of Pool Tables to Scaling Cotopaxi to $150M in Revenues | E1095 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Supported
Baby.com.br grew to 300 employees within 18 months of launching
“We grow to like 300 employees in like 18 months.”
Davis Smith Dec 15, 2023 ▶ 11:22 Davis Smith: From Selling $6M of Pool Tables to Scaling Cotopaxi to $150M in Revenues | E1095 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Davis Smith: Cotopaxi's initial concept was created in 36 hours
“I sat on the couch all night the next day and the entire following night. So, 36 hours on this couch. And during that period, and I took detailed notes, I still have the journal entries on my computer, and I basically had the entire idea for Cotopaxi.”
Davis Smith Dec 15, 2023 ▶ 15:23 Davis Smith: From Selling $6M of Pool Tables to Scaling Cotopaxi to $150M in Revenues | E1095 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Davis Smith takes annual island survival trips with no food
“Every year I do a survival trip or two where I go survive on an island, bring no food, spearfish, eat coconuts, build a shelter.”
Davis Smith Dec 15, 2023 ▶ 1:07:03 Davis Smith: From Selling $6M of Pool Tables to Scaling Cotopaxi to $150M in Revenues | E1095 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

The other half of the tape: Davis Smith's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 1 time in 1 episode on 20VC. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Sumeet Shah 1

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
0011112015episodesmentions
0112015episodes it came up in
000.50.5112015episodesmentions per episode
2015 1 mention in 1 episode

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
Davis Smith: From Selling $6M of Pool Tables to Scaling Cotopaxi to $150M in Revenues | E Dec 15, 2023 55m
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