The Ledger
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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 pitched over 100 investors seeking 10-year permanent capital for Cotopaxi
“I pitched over a hundred different investors, lots of family offices.”
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.”
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.”
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…”
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.”
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: 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 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 …”
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…”