20VC: Cotopaxi: From Selling $6M of Pool Tables to Scaling $150M in Revenues and Challenging Patagonia, Fundraising Lessons from 100+ Rejections & What Founders Do Not Understand About VC with Davis Smith, Founder @ Cotopaxi

23:01I know we let people out. We let people out. Yeah, Bane Capital, they bought out a lot of our early investors. And those early investors made a fantastic return. And now Bane Capital invested two and a half years ago, we've more than triple our revenue, since they've invested two and a half years ago. Now Bane Capital is gonna get a return. That said, Harry, you're right, there's a misalignment. And I don't know the answer yet. I'm trying to figure out, and I'll just tell you, I haven't talked publicly about this, but earlier this year about 12 months ago I knew I was leaving the company leaving my CEO role to go lead a mission for my church in Brazil My church asked me if I would leave my life behind my with my family moved to Brazil go lead a church mission It makes no sense, right?

23:42It's like why would you possibly why would you go leave this brand that's growing? You know, we've grown a hundred percent almost a year before Why would you possibly leave and we can talk more about that? But it's like, you know, it's so aligned with what mattered to me. And so, made the decision to leave, but I started thinking a lot about what was the future of codopaxi? And I had this misalignment where I had being capital and some other investors that were looking and saying, hey, you know, this has been a great investment for us. How do we get out? How do we go create a return for our investors?

24:10Which is fine. I'm happy for them. At the same time, I want to build a brand that can be durable over decades. I want to build a brand that's not beholden to an investor. I want to build a brand that's beholden to our mission in our purpose. And so I actually went out and I tried to fundraise and I went through a process about six months long that was painful. I pitched over a hundred different investors, lots of family offices, and I told the story of this brand that was over a hundred million in revenue, it was growing, you know, at this crazy rate, it would have been profitable for four years.

24:41I thought, this is a great story. I'm going to be able to go raise money from an investor that's committed to at least 10 years. That's what I'm looking for. It's like, I want someone that's committed for 10 years. I failed. It was painful. It was sad. I was so disappointed in myself. And I would say I pride myself in knowing how to fundraise and knowing how to tell the story. But there was someone you think you did wrong? I don't know. I don't know. It was probably a combination of a few things. Like, number one timing of the market, very hard market, anything in the public markets, as we all know, is just a disaster.

25:14or that definitely impacts things. I think part of it to, maybe too ambitious. I wanted to restructure the organization that took power away from investors and gave power to our foundation to go drive decisions, to go use the business truly to do good. And at the same time, promising great returns. It's like we are going to be a multi -billion dollar business. It's just a matter of time and we're profitable and we'll continue to be profitable. But we don't want to be driven to make the wrong decisions because that's the biggest thing that we need to protect as a brand is our purpose and our mission.

25:45And so I think I was too ambitious. And I think there weren't enough, and there are not enough investors that say, hey, I'm willing to stick to something for 10 years. I'm, you know, I'm just, I think, do you think respectfully, I didn't know how to say this without being too direct with that. Your pop has driven goodness. It's kind of concerning for investors. Sure. For many investors, it is. When I started the brand, same thing. I pitched 100 investors to get our first investor, you know, Pearson Green and Forerun She she backed us I pitched a hundred messers in our first to raise that seed round I led with our mission is like we are building a brand that is going to fight poverty We're gonna use profits and actually we're gonna use money before we have profits to go fight poverty So I really needed investors that buy it into it and some did what was the price on that first round?

26:30We raised three million dollars. So a seven pre ten post whoa Yeah, this is back in 2014 You know, we hadn't sold anything it was just literally a PowerPoint But you know what people believed in us and Kirsten and those other early investors they made the right decision They invested in what ended up becoming a really great brand and a great investment for them Harry the interesting thing though. I will say I don't know. I can't really explain why our first major investor Kirsten Green our second major investor Ellie Wheeler from Greatcroft our third major investor Brocarly our fourth major investor Lauren Ivesson our last investor with Bank capital Cecilia Chap there's a trend women are leading rounds in our business.

27:11I really believe that women better understood and understand purpose in business than mended. But yeah, you're right. Many investors, because of our mission and purpose, are like, I just don't know that this is right for us. What do you founders not know about fundraising that you think they should know given the many rounds you've tried and successfully sometimes and not successfully other times raised? I think a few things. Number one, I don't think most people understand how hard it is. You will get rejected a lot. And it's a tricky balance to understand, when do you walk away? You say, hey, I'm just realizing that the market isn't right, the timing isn't right.

27:47I'm not at the right place to the business to go raise money or being persistent and saying, hey, I've got it right. I just need to listen and figure out how to better present what I'm trying to build to connect with investors. I hear a lot of times young entrepreneurs saying, hey, you know, I've tried to raise and for whatever reason, everyone, I've been rejected to 10 times and it's like, oh, 10, yes, of course you're going to reject it if you only pitch it 10 times, you need to go do this a lot, a lot more. The other thing is, I think a lot of entrepreneurs don't understand how big and ambitious the idea needs to be to go raise venture capital.

28:16A lot of times I get to send a deck and say, hey, I'm going to go raise money, here's the deck. I'm looking five years out, they're selling $15 million product or something. It's like 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. You need to have that vision and you need to go sell that vision to an investor. and with confidence and you need to go have the data behind it to kind of explain how you're gonna get there. So yeah, I think people a lot of times don't understand what these sees are looking for in terms of what kind of returns they need to get.

28:44They know most of the businesses are not gonna make it. So they need the ones that do make it need to be very, very big. I totally get you and I agree. Do you think we are missing a product for founders like you? And what I mean by that is I think funding is a product too and there's different types of customers. But we, you know, I have a 10 year fund life cycle and I have a two year extension. Dude, I have to provide liquidity. It's my job to my invests, it's my responsibility. Do you think we are missing funds, structures that are much longer term? Because the only one is really permanent capital vehicles, which is quite a limited supply?

29:16Yes, I believe we are. And only based on the experience I had in the last 12 months, like I wanted permanent capital. Even in the last 12 months, since I started that fundraising process, we've think businesses increased 50%. It would have been a great investment for someone that would have come in and said, that, hey, we believe you've already been growing on this amazing tear, we believe in your vision, and we're committed to a tenure commitment or 15 year commitment. And it's like, let's go build this together. Let's go build the next billion, multi billion dollar brand, but very, very few investors are committed to that kind of timeline.

29:47They're all everything so short term minded, which is frankly, I mean, this is, this is the world we live in. Everyone is focused on short term versus long term. How do I get happy quickly? How do go satisfy this instant desire that I have. Is it bad to chase happiness? I think it was Walter Isaacson say that you know Elon Musk's specialty because he doesn't actually ever look for happiness. Is it bad to chase happiness? I think when you chase happiness, we're oftentimes chasing the wrong thing because just human nature, we think what brings us happiness is things that don't. We'll never find happiness when we're thinking about ourselves.

30:20And I found the most happiness when I'm out working towards a greater cause. You know, this last six months for me has been some of the greatest joy. And if I'm being honest, like, was I scared to leave? Codavaxi absolutely. Was I sad to leave? Very sad. I'm still sad. I'm still sad. I love that brand. I was the greatest professional achievement of my life. And I'm still sad thinking about walking away from that. And at the same time, every minute of my day, these days, is focused on someone else. This is what truly brings joy. What truly brings happiness. This is the stuff that fills the soul.

30:52Every minute, thinking about somebody else. And so this is where, you know, at least for me, where I found happiness. And I think there's nothing wrong with wanting to be happy. We need to remember what actually brings happiness. Do you think people are all as good as you? And I don't mean that really, but some people are deeply fulfilled by materials. And they are happy with whatever that may be. Everyone is different or is everyone the same? I mean, I think humans were wired very similarly. I actually have a hard time believing that that materialism brings anyone lasting joy and I think just part of being human It's like we care deeply for others.

31:26I mean, that's what makes us human It's like we have empathy and compassion for other people and I think yes Are there exceptions of course there are exceptions, but I think overwhelmingly human You know what's more? Are we getting worse? We're getting more and more isolationists. We're getting more and more self -important self -centred and actually it becomes more and more protectionist around myself versus the world It's possible that's true. I also tend to think that humans and a lot of ways were better than we ever have been. I mean, I think we live in, while there's so much violence in the world, there's so much pain and suffering.

31:58We actually look at the world. It's so much better than it was a couple hundred years ago. There was less violence than there was a few hundred years ago. There's less poverty. You know, 94 % of the world lived in extreme poverty 200 years ago. In 1820, almost the entire human population lived in extreme poverty. It's now 8 .5%. It's like it's an amazing world we live in. You know, are the things I worry about, of course. You know, I think I wish we had a world that was less about tearing others down and more about building others up. And, you know, I think we have a fundamental lack of great leadership in the world.

32:28And by the same time, like, why would anyone want to lead? Because when you volunteer to lead, you get torn down. You get picked to pieces if you ever disagree with someone and think differently, right? So it's like, there's not a lot of incentives to want to go take on these. I look at the presidential election in the United States and it's like, how in a country that size do we not have more inspiring Leadership that's stepping up. Well the truth is you do that just to Goldman Sachs and he's six million a year or in some other private market Learning a lot more not having the shit of daily papers and tablets It's come out of you going back to the venture side people often say that VCs to track more values than they add Cash is a great value on its own to be clear But do you think the ECs provide much value outside of funding?

33:10I think that provide tremendous value. Actually, I think it's a game changer for me. You know, I've done both and I'd say one of the greatest advantages is the value add of investors. Having brilliant minds around the table that are helping you make better decisions. It's not just the money. In what way? What ways is it game changer? You know, I think of the investors I've had around the table. You know, I've just I've made much better decisions and I've been able to recruit better talent because I have credibility because we have someone with credibility that's at the board table. They help me close, you know, hiring.

33:41It's like, I say, okay, I need this person closed. I go get Kirsten Green or someone from our board to go jump on a call. I can attract and retain talent better. I'm making better decisions as a business leader. And so... What was the best fast meeting you had? With a venture capitalist? Kirsten Green, that one was really special for me because I saw it in her eyes. She believed, She believed in this vision. You know, I didn't win her over instantly. There were some arms twisting They had to happen. I think she felt the passion that I had for why this brand needed to exist and Ultimately she she took a bet on us and I'm so grateful for it I heard that COVID was actually a time when you grew the company to new heights and during the pandemic you excelled new products New company rituals.

34:23What did you do and what worked? Yeah, COVID was an interesting time for us In some ways, it was what allowed us to break out. Although it wasn't interesting, it wasn't the highest growth. Our slowest growth year in the last 10 years was actually 2020. We grew 40 % that year, but we were profitable, significantly profitable. And it was because we tightened our belt in such a big way. We didn't lay people off, but we all rallied together in a big way. And I just told the team, look, I don't want to do layoffs. I'm going to take a big pay cut. The executive team is going to take a big pay cut. We're going to ask the entire team to take a 10 % pay cut for three months and then a 5 % pay cut for the rest of the year.

35:02Let's all experience a little bit of pain together to save everyone's jobs and let's rally together. We doubled down on our social mission. We gave 3 % of our revenues that year to impact work. You know, and everyone else would have said, hey, let's not give money this year. Like, we don't have the money to give. It's a scary time. Day one of the pandemic. I committed to our team that we would not waver on our impact work. And so we rallied together and we innovated. We started selling masks, face masks, which was outside of the scope. We normally did, but we sold a lot of them. And it really kind of saved our business during that.

35:33Does anyone entirely go, hey, I got it on the giving, but I've got a family. If I don't need to take a pay cut, and you're making me take a time to some pay cut, come on. Well, look, we have a team of believers. They are not there because this is a career move. They're there because it's a calling. They feel called to this work. And at the end of the day, you know, we ended up giving everyone what they what they've given up at the end of the year We gave everyone bonuses. We give them everything that they've given up and more What I think we all believe is that when we do the right thing when we commit to our mission first the business is gonna be better Is there any time when doing the right thing and the business being better are at odds the margin optimization letting go of people whatever that may be is there ever time when doing the right thing and the business of cancer adults.

36:19Of course, of course, I think in the short term, yes, quick example. When I was in Brazil, I was living in South Paulo, 20 million people, very busy city, traffic is crazy. It would take an hour and a half to two hours to commute eight kilometers, five miles. I had two little girls at home and I wanted to be a great dad and so I decided I was going to leave the office at 5, 5, 30 every single day, which in Brazil was unheard of. you know, most people would work till seven or eight or nine, especially in a startup. It's like, what are you doing leaving it five or five thirty? And I actually had one of our investors say, you know, Davis, if you leave at that time, the entire team's going to leave at that time.

36:56And I said, you know, I'm great with that. I want these people to go home and balance their family life and this work life. In the end, what ended up happening was people did leave when I left. And we also ended up recruiting some of the most amazing female talent in the country. because we started having this huge number of female executives that heard about this and said, I want to be a mom too. I have kids at home and I don't want to just work till 9 p .m. and this is a place that respects families and so we had men and women that started joining our team saying, I want to work at this place, I'm willing to take a pay cut, I'm willing to go to join the start of the Thai risk versus this big company I'm at because I want to go be part of a brand and culture that aligns with my values.

37:36So I think in the short term, sure, maybe, but I think in the long term, when you're doing the right thing, you end up having great results. Oh, I'm going to get into trouble for this, but fuck it anyway, I'll do it. I don't and I'm just kind of teeing you up here, but I don't think you can be truly, truly great and have balance. Let me just pause on that one. You can build a billion dollar businesses. Amazing. It's huge. No one does that. Points are, but like truly, truly great generation changing. Patagonia, they say, let's go surfing. Let's go surfing. It's like the most intense full -on culture you could ever have.

38:09If you want to build a 10 billion dollar plus, it doesn't cost. You know what? I think I disagree with this one. I disagree. I think you name me one. Sure. So you mentioned Patagonia. And I think this is a great example. Patagonia is a great example of what I'm right. Because he had no balance. He was unhinged. But, you know, at the same time, Avant Chinari, he took massive amounts of time off. You know, he went and traveled down to Patagonia with the founder of the North Face, what is best buddy, it took like six months and when he traveled and climbed rocks, right? It's like for many years of his career, the bulk of the growth of Patagonia happened when he was working six months on, six months off.

38:51You know, he's going out and fishing and disappearing for six months. I'm Eddie, but I didn't almost see that as balance. It's almost like you here, which is like you put in place to structure and reframe what the allows the business to run very efficiently while you're gone. He did the same and it's on or off. There's not balance. Let's just look at the code of taxi case. For 10 years, did I put a lot of work into the business? Of course I did. I put a lot of work into the business. And at the same time, I really did have balance. And it's not that every single day was perfectly balanced. That's not, of course, not the case.

39:19But when I look at the whole of my time building this business, I was very balanced as a father. I've got, I've got four kids. I spent a lot of time with my family. I spent a lot of time doing social impact work that I care about. I spent a lot of time volunteering with my church. I prioritized the things that mattered to me. And they weren't just work. And at the same time, you look at what Codobaxi has done, are we a multi -billion dollar business? Not yet, we will be. And if you look at the percentage of businesses that have started in the last 10 years, we are in the top 1%. I think we're a great example of a business that has shown that yes, you can't have balance.

39:51You can still build an extremely efficient and great business that's doing great work. You know, I have to put in 120 hours a week, 100 hours a week, and not have any balance and torch family relationships and everything else just to go build a business. Can I ask you, speaking about bringing in talent, a CEO transition is a really hard thing to do as you said about your love for the brand and how much of a part of you it is. Can you take me to the CEO transition and your biggest lessons having gone through it on what it means to do CEO transition while? Yeah, you know, this is the most painful thing for a founder.

40:26When you get to the point where you recognize, I may not be the right person to continue building this brand and leading this brand. Was that a hair though? Or was it the cooling? You know, I would say it's a little bit of both. They kind of coincided simultaneously. I'd say, you know, my, this is one of the advantages of having a great board. Is they help you see blind spots. And I, you know, my board was so proud of the work that I'd done in building this brand. And at the same time, I was started hearing from board members saying, hey, we think you'd benefit from having a right hand, a company president that had done this before that had taken a business from 150 million in revenue to a billion and a half in revenue.

41:02You've never done that, Davis. And they're right. I had never done that. I had no idea how to do that. You need that, Davis. You'd never sold scuba gear either. You'd never sold good tables. Like, everything we're told you need someone who's done it before. It's always the first time for someone. And I'm just pushing you here. Maybe you did. No, for sure. And could I have stayed and kept doing it? Sure. I probably would have figured it out. At the same time, I care a lot more about, I want to go have the biggest impact we can possibly have. And if I can get someone to come in and do a better job than I could do, I'm going to go have a bigger impact It's not about what's best for me or what I want.

41:38It was for me. It was really about how do we go have the biggest impact And so I listened to the board and I thought you know what I think they're right I would benefit from this and I started a process Bank 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 mistake You should not do it. You should hire these professionals to go do it But look like I asked them to give me blind profiles profiles of people that they would go put in this role I looked at these lists and it was like number one I know like 30 % of the people on the list already and there people I would not choose for this role or I'm looking at them And it's like these are not the kind of people I'd want and I felt like if I pay them a bunch of money and Bank capital is on my is on my tail like saying hey before they bring it to you Who's gonna be the best best person once they we narrow down to the top one or two or three people I'm gonna be forced to choose one of those people because we just ran this expensive process.

42:31Instead I said, hey, I know what I want I know what the brand needs and so I'm gonna go run the process. I reached out to about a hundred different friends Joey from all birds being one of them and a bunch of others and I just said, hey, who are the best leaders? You know when you think about a consumer brand leader who are the best leaders? You know who are the people I should be talking to and a former president of the North Face that I reached out to is who has become a friend He said, hey, there's one person. I think you should be talking to And his name is Damien Wong. He's the CEO of Eddie Bauer, but he previously led product to Patagonia.

43:02He led product here for me at the North Face. He is brilliant. Maybe the most talented product person in the outdoor industry. I don't know that he'd ever leave his job at Eddie Bauer. If you could get him, he'd be amazing. So I get on this phone call with Damien, and I start telling him about this vision for this brand. And it turns out, you know, the name Codobaxi is named after Volcano and Ecuador, where I lived as a teenager. It turns out that Damien had done a study abroad when he was at Duke for like six or nine months in Ecuador He'd climbed Codopax into volcano. He felt deeply connected to our mission.

43:31He had both of his parents or immigrants All of a sudden it was like this dream person that you just would hope that someone like him would be willing to take the role Was interested 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 just decided you know I'm not in this so that I can be the CEO forever I'm in this to go have an impact and so I I chose to hire Damian and then shortly there after my church Asked me if I'd be willing to go to Brazil and so it all kind of lined up and worked out perfectly We're questioned.

44:06Do you think Patagonia have lost their roots in terms of that outdoors nature now They're the VC parody of corporate jackets and their corporate jackets all over the world I'm sure a lot of their revenues in corporate jacketing and do you think they've lost their way and do you worry about losing yours. I don't think they have. I think they've stayed true to their mission so like incredibly well over decades and in fact this last move I think by Ivanshanard was brilliant. I know way to protect the brand and say hey we don't care about getting the most money out of this business. I guess if there was a criticism I'd have is why after 40 years was he the only shareholder?

44:40I fundamentally disagree with this. We have people who work in a warehouse that lead our retail store operations that have equity. I believe that wealth needs to be better distributed. 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 their children and allow their children to go have new opportunities. I'm a believer in capitalism. I believe the capitalism if it's done right and it needs to be done better than it has been. But I think that it can solve a lot of problems.

45:12And so yeah, that's something that I aim to maybe do a little differently. Can I ask you, you mentioned a couple of times, about you know you're being a father. Many, many, many thousands of fathers that listen to this and parents that listen to this. What does being a great father mean to you, Davis? I think it's hard like to your point, it's hard to balance the ambition to go build something great and to be excellent at it and to be a great dad. One thing, one realization I had a few years back was that I was being more deliberate and intentional about my company culture than I was about my family culture.

45:42I've been very specific in Code of Acts about identifying core values, specifically creating rituals and traditions that reinforce the values. Every single day I tracked and measured our culture. How do you track and measure culture? It's traditionally quite intangible. How do you track and measure? Yeah, there's a number of great tools. One of my favorites is actually a company called Office Vib. It sounds outpoles through Slack. I measure literally every day. I'm tracking and measuring our culture. And I can track and slice the data based on gender, based on tenure in the company, based on all these different metrics.

46:14I can look at each department. and I kind of see where there are issues, where are their problems, and I can identify things before they blow up. And so I can start seeing trends. And I was so intentional about my company culture, and when I came to my family culture, the organization that mattered the most to me, I was not following any of those things. And so my wife and actually, we sat down and we created the values that mattered most to our family. And we put them on our wall. And they actually, they're aligned with the SMITH, our last name, Smith, each one of those stands for something. Our children all know what they stand for.

46:44Once a week we have a meeting with the whole family, a family evening that we have together and we talk about our goals We talk about these values. We've created rituals and traditions that have changed our family culture And so I think being a great dad is being intentional. One of the biggest mistakes you see parents playing today. You've obviously scaled teams, seen many parents of all of growth. When do you think the biggest mistakes that you see parents make around you are? Honestly, I think time. We can't make up for time. I mean, we can we can create all the rituals or traditions we want, but if we're not giving our children time You can't make up for that and so I think that's the biggest mistake people make is they think I'm too busy to go spend The time and I'll go make up for it by taking them on it.

47:22I'll take them to Disney Land or I'll take I'll go buy them something that they want an iPhone or those things will never Make up for lost time with your children and they grow up so quick I have you know I four kids I my two oldest daughters are older now And I have two little boys that are five and eight. And so like I watched my daughters and how fast they grew. And it's sad to watch out. I missed those those early days when they were little. We have to give them time. Does your marriage change? Probably stopping children. Oh, it's just gotten better. It's so fun. But it is different. I mean, our first child that was, you know, we were so young that we kind of grew up together.

47:57My wife and I, but you know, you're like 24. I was terrified. It wasn't about me anymore. My business had to work because if it didn't, And it was like, other people were gonna suffer because of me, right? So it created a lot of pressure. And at the same time, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. I had to grow up. I had to grow up very quickly. And I had to focus on what mattered most. And so, families are a gift. I'm just so, yeah, so grateful. What do you know now that you wish you'd known when you became a father for the first time? You can call yourself up and say, hey, baby, you should know this.

48:27I kind of look at it as a matrix. And you have love and expectations. You have to have so much love, but also high expectations. I need to balance those things. And so I think sometimes as a parent, you're attempted to just show so much love, but you're not willing to correct. You're not willing to push them to be the very best they can be. Or sometimes as a parent, you're criticizing. You're too critical of a child. And they don't know how much you love them. And so I think this constant balance, and I think I'm getting better and better at it, which is like, they have to know how much you adore them, how much you love them.

48:59And when they know that and then you give instruction on how they can be better They're a lot more willing to listen to it. That's that's something I wish I would have better understood You know as a young parent listen Davis like I taught you all day I want to move into a quick fire around so I say a short statement having just peppered you with questions about your marriage Changing with children which was entirely on the cards I'd love to I'd love to start with what if you changed your mind on in the last 12 months? Well, you know, I talked about that that failed fundraising process. 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'm open to all options all that matters to me is that we stay true to our values And if we can do that through an M &A process if we can do that by going public at some point you know going public is I have a number of friends that have taken companies public over the last few years It has been depressing to watch what they've gone through.

49:55So there's not a lot, I look at that and I'm like, why would I ever want to do that? But I think at the right time, let's say, let's say Codabaxi is 500 million in sales and has $75 or $80 million in EBITDA. At that point, it's like the business is stable. That is kind of a phase where you could go public and it would be okay. I think a lot of companies are going public way too early. They're not profitable enough, they're not stable enough, they're not meeting expectations of investors. and I think that's the biggest risk is going public too early. But if we did it at the right time, maybe it would make more sense.

50:26Do you worry about public market valuations of consumer brands just crushing your potential? Do you worry about that? Of course, I know of course I worry about it. And I think this is the challenge of public markets. As Joey is a great example, Albert's peak valuation versus the versus where they are today. It's down like 95 % right or more. But their revenue is still, they have a great company. They have an incredible brand. So he's done such a beautiful job in building this company and they've got great, great product. You know, they've had some challenges. And you know, revenues, I think it maybe shrunk a little bit.

51:02I'm not sure, not 95%. But the public markets, they're so fickle. It creates a real challenge to run a business when you're so dependent on what the public markets are valuing the business at. That's the nice thing about being in the private markets. You know, VCs, PEs, they're not gonna look get your business and devalue the business by that much just because I hiccuped in the business. You can choose a dinner guest that are alive. Who would you choose to have dinner with and what would you ask them? Okay so I don't want to be too religious but I would say you know Jesus Christ would be the top of my list.

51:32After Jesus Christ okay let's put Jesus Christ to sight. I love adventure. I love risk taking. I love seeing the world. I love discovering things. You know every year I do a survival trip or two where I go survive on an island, bring no food, spearfish, eco -canuts, build a shelter. I love this type of thing. I love reading about explorers. I love reading about people that have done really hard things. So Ernest Shackleton is just this figure that I just admire so much. I love the story of the HMS endeavor and how he goes down, gets stranded in Antarctica. For two years, they live on this iceberg, basically.

52:09Every one survives. Like he is such an inspiring figure. So some like Ernest Shackleton, you know, rolled ammons and the Norwegian explorer. There's some really great explorers that I'd love to have at the dinner table. Tell me, what one word do you want on your tombstone? Service. I hope that one day, if I were to be remembered by anything, it's just that I cared deeply for others that I loved others and that I used my life to serve. If I had to be remembered by anything, more than by a brand I built or anything else, it would just be that I loved and served others. What do you most want to change in yourself?

52:42No one's perfect, never has things to change. What would you like to change? You know, as an entrepreneur so much is about it's about you, right? And especially as you build a brand or a platform like you've built, it's like a lot of is it about you? And so I'd love to be to get to a point where I'm less, less self -concerned. Penaltema one, what's the most painful lesson that you've been through that you're actually pleased to have gone through? You know, the last six months for me has been painful. This has been hard. leaving everything behind. We moved into an apartment here in Brazil. It is just the most intense work that I've ever done in my life.

53:17It is physically, mentally, spiritually exhausting. I'd say the first two months were incredibly painful. Why? A lot of discomfort. I don't know what I'm doing. Like I'm used to leading a business. Like this is not a business. The language, like I'm having to communicate in this language that you know I grew up speaking Spanish and English. Like Portuguese, I speak Portuguese, but not like I want. I'm having to communicate difficult things. I'm working with, you know, I'm helping these young missionaries and I'm creating, hopefully creating people that, when they're done with their two years of service here, that they go back and they become their generations, humanitarians.

53:52They're the people that are out there making the world a better place. And at the same time, they're here going through a really hard time themselves. They just gave up two years of their life. They're leaving college and their families behind to come here. They're learning new languages. They're getting rejected all day every day. They have their own mental health challenges. Like, they're such amazing people, these young people. I'm so inspired by them. And at the same time, like, I'm having to communicate with them in this language that I hardly speak sometimes. And like, you know, when someone's crying and they're pointing out their soul to you in a language that you're like, I'm not even capturing 50 % of what you're saying.

54:24It's like, I'm stressed out. Like, I want to help you, but I don't understand everything you're saying. And then seeing poverty, heart breaking poverty, people that are just living in conditions that no human should live in. It pulls at your heart. and it makes you want to do more. And so it's been hard. And at the same time, I'm so grateful for it. I'm so grateful that we left everything behind to go do something that really truly matters. Fun one, five years time. Where are you then? You will have finished doing the three -year stand in the back of Codopaxi? Are you doing something new? I do know this.

54:56This time will come to an end in three years. And Codopaxi is a lifelong commitment that I've made. I've committed my life to fighting poverty and that platform of Codopaxi is going to be a really powerful platform. I also know 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 but my hope is that I can need a focus on purpose and mission and impact and my scope will will be a little more outwardly focused instead of just focus on the impact that Codopaxi can have. I hope that I can go out and rally other business leaders and brands and businesses to join us in this movement of doing good.

55:36And so I think that's what I'd like to spend my time on when I get back. David, I've loved doing this. The breadth of this conversation has been phenomenal. You've been incredibly patient putting up with me. Thank you so much for joining me today, and I've loved it. Well, Harry, thank you. You're such a kind and thoughtful interviewer. Thank you for the thought you put into this. And, man, I will say you ask me some hard questions. I just love shows like that. I am always in awe of incredible entrepreneurs. and I think that's such an incredible scaling journey with Kotopaxi and if you want to see more you can check it out on YouTube by searching for 20VC, that's 2 -0VC, but before we leave you today, there is no shortage of helpful AI tools out there, but using the mean switching back and forth between yet another digital tool, what was supposed to simplify your workflow just made it way more complicated and less of course, you're in Notion.

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58:19As always, I so appreciate all your support and stay tuned for an incredible episode coming this Monday with one of the biggest and best LPs in venture capital.