The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 41 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 3 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Smith: Female investors understand purpose in business better than male investors
“I really believe that women better understood and understand purpose in business than men did.”
Smith: Founders can build great businesses without torching work-life balance
“Yes, you can have balance and you can still build an extremely efficient and great business that's doing great work. You don't have to put in a 120 hours a week, a hundred hours a week and not have any balance. And torch, you know, family relationships and eve…”
Smith: Patagonia erred by keeping all equity with founder Yvon Chouinard
“I think the one thing that I'd love to do better though than what I've seen Patagonia do and this is coming from someone with deep admiration for Yvonne Chouinard and for Patagonia. I guess if there was a criticism I'd have is why after 40 years was he the onl…”
Smith: Consumers will not buy products solely for social good
“People that's wonderful, but people are not going to buy, buy your product because you're doing good in the world. You need to first create a great product. And he was absolutely right. So I really do think that's first, like you have to go build a great produ…”
Smith relinquished Cotopaxi CEO title to recruit Damien Huang
“The only problem is he wanted to be CEO. He didn't want to be president. He didn't want to be my right hand. And I had some other options that were really great right hands that would have been happy being president forever. And at the end of the day, I did, I…”
Smith: Cotopaxi will build employee wealth rather than join a foundation
“And I actually think it's a win for Cotabaxi to, like, I don't want to give the company away to a foundation. I actually want to create something that can create wealth for many people within our organization, and that can allow them to go pass on this to thei…”
Smith: Cotopaxi needs $500M revenue and $75M EBITDA before an IPO
“But I think at the right time, let's say the, you know, let's say Cotabaxi is, you know, five hundred million in sales and has you know, 75 or eighty million dollars in EBITDA. At that point, it's like, it's stable. You know, the business is stable. I think th…”
Davis Smith: Entrepreneurship creates more societal impact than non-profit work
“And he instead convinced me that I shouldn't do that, that I should really, if I wanted to make a difference in the world, that I should become an entrepreneur.”
Smith pitched over 100 investors seeking 10-year permanent capital for Cotopaxi
“I pitched over a hundred different investors, lots of family offices.”
Smith: Very few venture investors commit to long-term 10-to-15-year timelines
“Very, very few investors are committed to that kind of timeline. They're all, everything's so short term minded”
Smith ran Cotopaxi's executive search himself against Bain Capital's advice
“And I started a process being capital gave me a handful of search firms to go talk to. I talked to four or five of them. I didn't want, I didn't hire any of them. And I decided I'm going to go run the process myself. And bank capital was like, that is a mistak…”
Smith opens Cotopaxi to public listing or M&A exit options
“I was so convinced 12 months ago that I would never take this company public, that I didn't want to sell it to anyone. I just wanted to stay independent and private forever. And I'd say I've changed my mind. I don't, I'm open to all options.”
Smith: Entrepreneurs misunderstand the scale required for venture capital
“I think a lot of entrepreneurs don't understand how big and ambitious the idea needs to be to go raise venture capital.”
Davis Smith raised $4.5 million for Baby.com.br off a PowerPoint
“We raised like four and a half million dollars based on a PowerPoint.”
Davis Smith: Pick co-founders based on skill fit, not family or friends
“I tell entrepreneurs, why don't you go identify your idea? Why don't you go figure out what you want to go build and then go find the best person in the world to go help you solve that problem. It probably is not going to be your cousin. It probably isn't goin…”
Smith compensated early Cotopaxi hires with equity contingent on fundraising
“Give them a little bit of equity. And we figured out some creative structure around compensation. If we ended up fundraising, if we didn't fundraise, it was like, I didn't have to pay anything. So they were taking a little bit of risk with me, but because of t…”
Davis Smith: The Greatest Entrepreneurs Are Incredible Salespeople
“The greatest entrepreneurs are incredible salespeople. They know how to sell. They know how to sell a vision. They know how to sell an idea. They know how to sell a product. And so you're selling every single day as an entrepreneur. And I think that starts wit…”
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.”
Cotopaxi raised a $3M seed round at a $7M pre-money valuation
“We raised three million dollars and had a, so a seven pre, 10 post.”
Davis Smith: Ten investor rejections is far too few when fundraising
“If you only pitch it 10 times, you need to go do this a lot, lot more.”
Davis Smith: VCs require a path to $1B in revenue
“Venture capital is not going to fund that business. You need to go build something that's going to do a billion dollars in revenue.”
Smith predicts Cotopaxi will become a multi-billion dollar business
“Are we a multi-billion dollar business? Not yet, but we will be.”
Smith: Cotopaxi ranks in top 1% of startups from past decade
“If you look at, you know, the percentage of businesses that have started in the last 10 years, we are in the top one percent.”
Davis Smith: Brands shouldn't manage their entire philanthropic vertical in-house
“In fact, I'd say you shouldn't own the vertical entirely to give effectively. I think you specialize in what you're great at.”
Baby.com.br raised around $40M in venture capital
“At that point, we'd raised around forty million dollars in venture capital.”
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.”
Smith: Cotopaxi grew nearly 100% the year before he stepped down
“We'd grown a hundred percent almost the year before.”
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.”
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.”
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: 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.”
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.”
Cotopaxi Donated 3% of 2020 Revenue to Impact Work
“We gave three percent of our revenues that year to impact work.”
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: 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 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”
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…”
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”
Baby.com.br grew to 300 employees within 18 months of launching
“We grow to like 300 employees in like 18 months.”
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.”