What I Know

Cotopaxi, the Salt Lake City-based outdoor-apparel company, wasn’t Davis Smith’s first business. But it was his first business inspired by a mission to do more than just sell stuff. In fact, the vision for giving back came before the company. And the mission to build a public-benefit corp with strong values came before he ever sold one technicolor backpack. He tells host Christine Lagorio-Chafkin about the inspiration for, and the making the “gear for good” company Cotopaxi, which now has more than 300 employees, and whose revenues have surpassed $100 million.

Allison Ellsworth spent seven years on the road working in the oil and gas industry. It took a toll on her health. So she took her discontent to her own kitchen. She felt she was getting health benefits from drinking apple cider vinegar, but hated the taste. Could she concoct something fruity, low-sugar, and with prebiotics? She’s Allison Ellsworth, the founder and chief of brand at Poppi. You may have seen the bright-colored cans on grocery store shelves, or on Shark Tank, or on TikTok. But before Allison was a DTC alt-soda sensation, she tells host Christine Lagorio-Chafkin, she was driving across the United States knocking on doors. She’s the kind of founder who, once she believes something, she goes for it–and this is how she built her brand and became a TikTok sensation.

Kiki Freedman is co-founder and CEO of Hey Jane, a company changing the landscape for medicinal abortion–offering it with telehealth care, and sending pills by mail. In our regular episode, we talked about all the challenges her company faced launching and expanding in a hugely changing regulatory environment–and navigating an increasingly politically divisive one. In this bonus episode, host Christine Lagorio-Chafkin asks her about finding time for herself, and recharging her mind and body after challenging days at work

While in Harvard Business School, Kiki Freedman had an idea: What if she could work with clinicians and provide medication abortions to individuals through telemedicine, and through the mail? Professors were skeptical. So were investors. Regulations loosened up and the pandemic provided opportunity to launch–but then the Supreme Court changed everything for the future of her business. Freedman, the co-founder and CEO of Hey Jane, tells host Christine Lagorio-Chafkin about the resilience required to navigate a constantly changing regulatory environment, and about creating data-security that could protect patients from not just hackers–but also from hostile governments.

In this flashback episode, Christine Lagorio-Chafkin talks with Kim and Tim Lewis, founders of Curl Mix, about their circuitous funding journey and landing at No. 93 on the 2021 Inc. 5000 after attaining more than 4,000 percent growth over the past three years.(Original Air Date 9-27-21)

Thrive Market sells hundreds of highly curated very-good-for you pantry staples, and more than 1.2 million people are subscribers. Thrive isn’t just aiming to get organic, healthy food into more peoples’ pantries and diets–it’s aiming at planetary health, too–going plastic-neutral this year, and carbon negative by 2025. While doing all this–and working in a traditionally low-margin business, trying to keep costs down for his customers, co-founder and CEO Nick Green needs to carve out time for himself. He tells host Christine Lagorio-Chafkin how he makes time to work on his personal health, including his nutrition and supplement habits, and how he unwinds with his family.

 My guest today is striving to change access to organic, healthy foods, at reasonable prices…while also taking on Amazon with a very un-Amazon model…in that thinks he can do it all sustainably. His company is going plastic-neutral this year, and carbon-negative by 2025, and supporting regenerative agriculture while already offsetting the company’s entire shipping footprint. If you know supply chains, you know this sounds barely possible? Well, his business is working: It has more than 1.2 million paying members, and had more than $400 million in sales in 2021. It’s called Thrive Market, and he’s co-founder and CEO Nick Green.

Stuart Butterfield, the CEO of Slack, has just begun his parental leave, and is also stepping back from his role leading the company he cofounded in 2009. Host Christine Lagorio-Chafkin asked him to look back at his time as CEO of Slack, to what worked really well, and what he knows best. Turns out, one of the things that helped the team at Slack during its years of hyper-fast growth was fostering a culture where debate and disagreement were welcome. Butterfield, himself, had his mind changed many times, he admits.

Stewart Butterfield, the co-founder and CEO of Slack is on the cusp of 50, and on the brink of stepping down as chief executive of the extremely popular communications-for-teams software company he built. Slack has more than 18 million active daily users, and was acquired by Salesforce in 2020 for $27.7 billion. Butterfield exclusively takes host Christine Lagorio-Chafkin through his fascinating career of building games, startups, abandoning ideas, and running the fastest-growing enterprise tech company of its time.

Lindsay McCormick started her business without really meaning to start a business. She just wanted to try to make a sustainable, healthy toothpaste, without the landfill-bound packaging, for herself and her friends. But then to pay expenses she started selling it–and it took off, with increasingly eco-conscious consumers. She was inspired in part by the nature she was surrounded by in Southern California–she was a snowboard instructor and a surfing instructor, too. Today, while running Bite, which stands for Because It’s The Earth, and sells personal care items that are compostable, refillable, and plastic-free, she still finds inspiration way out in the deep.