Assertion Not checkable as stated
Bain Capital tied Cotopaxi executive bonuses to social impact metrics
“The first thing that they did was they tied our bonuses, our compensation as leaders in the company to our impact work.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
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%.”
Disclosure
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.”
Disclosure
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.”
Prediction Open · timeframe May 2023
Davis Smith: Cotopaxi can become a billion-dollar business
“I believe we can go build a billion dollar business.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Cotopaxi avoided 2020 layoffs via temporary pay cuts repaid with bonuses
“Instead of doing layoffs, we decided to cut our executive salaries in a pretty significant way, and we cut everyone's pay by 10% for three months, and then we cut it down to five percent for the rest of the year, and then by the end of the year, we ended up gi…”
Assertion Supported
Cotopaxi hired former Eddie Bauer CEO Damien Huang as president in 2022
“We just hired the CEO of Eddie Bauer, joined our team last year as the president, Damien Wong.”
Assertion Supported
Cotopaxi has aided 3.8 million people in poverty over nine years
“Over the history of our business, the last almost nine years, we've helped and aided 3.8 million people living in poverty through our efforts.”
Assertion Supported
Cotopaxi made 97% of products from recycled or remnant materials in 2022
“Last year, 97% of all of our products that we sold were made of the three, one of the three R's.”
Disclosure
Davis Smith will retain chairman role during three-year church mission
“I'm going to be joining the board meetings. I'm going to be moving into a chairman role. Every quarter I'm going to do a meeting with all new employees, which I love doing this currently. I do it actually currently I do it every month, but all new employees I …”
Insight
Smith: Quality of Life Is Determined by Birthplace, Not Superior Merit
“One of the things that I learned from that very early age was that I was not special. I was not better than them or smarter than them or harder working or more ambitious. My life was different simply because of where I was born.”
Assertion Partly supported
Davis Smith: Baby.com.br raised $4.3 million in its initial venture round
“4.3 million.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Davis Smith: Establishing an entity in Brazil took Baby.com.br six months
“It took us six months to get a business license and entity set up.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Baby.com.br scaled to 400 employees within 18 months of its launch
“I mean, we went to like 400 employees within 18 months of our launch.”
Assertion Supported
Smith: Kirsten Green led Cotopaxi's first round and wrote the first check
“We had Kirsten Green led our first round. This is an investor that she's backed Warby Parker and Away and Birchbox and Dollar Shave Club, and she believed in us, and she believed in our mission, and so she wrote the first check, and that was the beginning of t…”
Assertion Supported
Cotopaxi let factory sewers design one-of-a-kind bags using remnant fabric
“We went to them and said, hey, all this remnant material that we see, all this leftover, we want to use it, and we want you guys to design the bags. The only rule is to make no bag alike, and so that's been really fun.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Cotopaxi's 'Questival' generated 30,000 social media posts on launch day
“We had 30,000 social media posts the day of our launch, of people using our bags, outliving our brand values, and it was a really special way for us to go build the brand.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Cotopaxi: Over 100,000 people participated in Questival events
“We had over a 100,000 people participate in one of our Questable events.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Cotopaxi hired an impact lead before its first marketing hire
“We hired a, someone to head up our impact work In the first year of our business, before we even hired someone in marketing, we hired someone in impact.”
Disclosure
Davis Smith lost close relationship with cousin after co-founding baby.com.br
“Kimball and I mean, we were like brothers. There's no other way to say it. I mean, we did everything together. We, you know, we'd built homes on the same street. We went to business school at the same time. We vacationed together. And honestly, it's one of the…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Davis Smith: PoolTables.com generated $1 million in sales in year one
“We did, yeah, we did a million in sales our first year in business.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Davis Smith: PoolTables.com reached $6M in revenue and $1M in EBITDA
“We were doing like six million in revenue maybe a million dollars in EBITDA.”
Disclosure
Davis Smith: We sold our pool table business off-market during business school
“We kept running the business from school and then there was a gentleman who owned a handful of domains and businesses, and we didn't even put the business on the market, really. We just reached out to him and said, Hey, we're in business school. We're thinking…”
Disclosure
Smith: Cotopaxi was inspired by Warby Parker and TOMS
“It was, I was inspired by Warby Parker, my classmates in school. I was inspired by Tom's shoes and I thought, you know, this is a way I can make a meaningful impact in the world.”
