Davis Smith
Founder & Chairman, Cotopaxi. On 3 shows, 4 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
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.
3shows
4appearances
77statements
15resolved
14supported
0contradicted
93%fully supported
2said about them ↓ Everything Davis Smith said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
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.”
Cotopaxi reached profitability in 2020 and grew revenue 90% in 2022
“We ended up having our first profitable year in 2020, and it was significantly profitable. And it allowed us to pay those bonuses to our team. And then in 20, 21, we grew a little over 60%. And then in 20, 22, we grew over 90, about 90%.”
Smith: Cotopaxi decided to transition to remote-first forever in August 2020
“And all of a sudden, you know, in August of twenty-twenty, we made the decision, we're remote first forever.”
Smith: Cotopaxi no longer needs to raise venture capital
“Over the last two years, our focus has really been on becoming sustainable and profitable, and we've made some amazing progress, and we're finally to the point where we don't have to raise more venture capital moving forward.”
Davis Smith: Cotopaxi can become a billion-dollar business
“I believe we can go build a billion dollar business.”
Cotopaxi's uniquely designed one-of-a-kind bags saw near-zero return rates
“And the return rate was like zero, like whatever they got, no matter how funky it was, they were, they loved it.”
Cotopaxi generated 30,000 social media posts in its first 24 hours
“We had 30,000 social media posts in that first 24 hours of our launch.”
Cotopaxi's early investors included Kirsten Green and the Warby Parker founders
“We ended up with a handful of investors that invested, like I mentioned, Kirsten Green from Foreigner Ventures and a handful of other amazing people that stepped up and some of my friends from business school, like the Warby Parker founders the founders of Har…”
Cotopaxi has sold 5 million backpacks made from repurposed fabric scraps
“We've made, we sold five million backpacks made of remnant leftover repurposed material from other outdoor brands. It's the leftover scraps.”
Cotopaxi grew to $150 million in revenue under Davis Smith's tenure
“I think I did a good job taking a business from zero to around a hundred and fifty million in revenue, and there's probably better leaders that can take it
To the next level.”
Davis Smith plans to return to Cotopaxi as Executive Chairman
“I suspect I'll probably go back to Cotopaxi and not as a CEO. I think I've given that role up and I'm okay with that now. I maybe play an executive chairman kind of role where I can still be very involved in our mission and our purpose and the culture.”
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 …”
The other half of the tape: Davis Smith's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 2 times in 2 episodes across the shows. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Sumeet Shah 1Guy Raz 1
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
20VC 1
How I Built This 1
2020 1 mention in 1 episode
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Davis's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20VCLEDGER | Founder & Chairman, Cotopaxi | 1 | 41 | 100% 6/6 | full record on 20VC → |
| HOW I BUILT THISLEDGER | Founder & Chairman, Cotopaxi | 2 | 25 | 83% 5/6 | full record on How I Built This → |
 MASTERS OF SCALELEDGER | Founder & Chairman, Cotopaxi | 1 | 11 | 100% 3/3 | full record on Masters of Scale → |