7y
Thank you for the valuable feedback. Managing culture in a growing company is not easy and takes daily work. I agree that being downtown has been a really fun change for the company (two years ago). There is a ton of energy downtown, and the number of restaurants is a huge plus. I also agree that Chelsea is amazing - we're lucky to have here, and I'm so glad we made that hire, which I believe shows our commitment to not just maintaining our culture, but building upon it. Her sole role is to build culture.
Regarding the "Cons," I think I should address each item. On compensation, let me explain how we determine salaries. We pay market wages - people either make a lateral move with their previous compensation or often times get a step-up (maybe with the exception of employees moving from NYC or SF where the cost of living is extremely high). We also compare salaries to those in similar functions, at similar companies here in Utah, and our wages are slightly above average. That said, it is true that if you want to go work somewhere to maximize your salary, Cotopaxi isn't the place to come work. People work here because they have an opportunity to build something, to take on big challenges earlier in their career than they would at a large organization, and to make a difference in the world ... and they'll also receive a fair salary and some equity/options in the business.
Regarding the "10% In the Wild Time," this is still alive and well. This isn't something we track, but we probably should. Anecdotally, I don't believe this has decreased over the last two years and has likely increased, particularly in the last six months. We've made a big push to encourage people to get outside, including giving the entire company the day off on the Summer Solstice (the longest day of the year) to spend time adventuring. We even closed our retail store. I do know that when we moved downtown it was much harder to get outside than it was when we were at the mouth of Big Cottonwood Canyon, but we all knew that would happen with the move (not much we can do about that, unfortunately).
Regarding the company off-sites, those were also a huge favorite of mine. These stopped for one reason only ... taking 75 people on a backpacking trip is not possible. Renting a ski house for 75 people doesn't work. That said, we've replaced these company-wide retreats with more frequent micro-retreats. For example, we had 15 team members go down to Lake Powell for a kayaking/camping adventure last month, which was company sponsored and paid for. We'll continue to offer frequent, optional team retreats where 10-20 people can go spend time together in the wild together.
Regarding the company culture, I track this daily based on anonymous OfficeVibe reviews provided by employees. It's a fantastic tool and in the year we've been using it, our culture has seen some amazing results. We're at the highest level of satisfaction, fulfillment, approval, etc. that we've had since we started measuring.
Regarding having a male-dominated culture, this is something I take seriously. Our first four major investors were female and our board has a long tradition of having strong female voices. At the Director and Manager level, there are more female leaders than male leaders, so our middle management is seeing strong leadership by women who are taking on bigger roles within the company. I personally track compensation by gender and Cotopaxi actually skews with slightly higher salaries for females (likely due to the fact that women have slightly better employee retention, meaning they've, on average, been here longer and had slightly more promotions/raises). I'm on the board of two women's leadership nonprofits, so I dedicate time outside of work to this issue. Regarding the Executive team, we are slightly more male-heavy, but we've added three Executives to the Exec Team since our founding and two of those three were women. I know there's more work we can do here, but I'm also very, very proud of where we are (particularly knowing that the outdoor industry, startups, and Utah businesses all tend to be very male heavy).
Lastly, I hope that your experience at Cotopaxi was a positive one for you despite our imperfections. It sounds like you had 2-3 promotions in a relatively short amount of time, which is great. I hope you landed somewhere that was able to take the experience you gained here and was able to build on it. I personally wish you the very best of luck and am appreciative that you took the time to let us know where we can improve. I think many of those changes have already been put into action over the last 6+ months, and I'll personally take your feedback and make sure we do even better.
Davis Smith, CEO
