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Hey friends,
On this week’s episode of Consumer VC, it was pleasure having Brian Folmer on for a conversation. Every month, Brian Folmer reviews about a hundred consumer brands, picks six, and packs their samples into boxes on his garage floor in Cleveland. Two full days of taping. Then the boxes go out to roughly a hundred angels, VCs, and family offices.
That’s First Look, the investor community Brian launched in June 2020. Since then, 500 companies have gone through the boxes, and members have put $27M into 70 of the brands they met that way.
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I sat down with Brian to talk about how he decides what makes the box, why he's passed on some of the buzziest talent-led brands, and what's actually happening in the trenches at Series A and B right now.
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
2:07 What First Look actually is
4:25 The bike ride that started the box
6:58 Bootstrapping and launching in June 2020
8:58 A month at First Look: 100 brands, 6 boxes, one garage
15:38 What stage fits: pre-seed vs. seed
18:25 Talent-led brands and "ludicrous" valuations
20:14 The back-of-the-napkin math
23:06 Sizing the outcome: base case vs. bull case
24:46 Building the investor community (and why 200 is the cap)
28:47 Is CPG AI-proof?
31:21 First Look vs. First Look Ventures
33:41 When your own members take the whole round
34:44 Too much money chasing too few deals
38:20 Debt vs. equity for emerging brands
43:25 The wall of cash and the new millionaires
46:51 What founders underestimate about how investors decide
47:52 What he's excited to fund: supplements, VMS, peptides
50:45 Will AI make incumbents harder to beat?
53:16 M&A, PE, and IPOs
55:42 The biggest surprise about VC
57:00 First advice for a founder with only a vision
58:00 Where investor communities fit over the next decade
59:11 Favorite books
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💡Have ideas for guests? Email mike@theconsumervc.com
