Food Chained

Vasa (00:07.185)
with Riverside, don't worry once it starts going. I'll tell them when to start. yeah, Riverside, I hate it, but it's just so much better than Zoom.

Brian Folmer (00:15.532)
Yeah, it looks pretty legit.

Vasa (00:17.829)
OK, cool. I'll kick it off. I'll count down from three when I get going. Just want to get this in my head.

Vasa (00:29.021)
All right. All right. Three, two, one. Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of food chain. Today we have Brian Fulmer, the founder of first look and managing partner and first look ventures. Welcome to the show, Brian.

Brian Folmer (00:44.952)
Thanks for having me. Excited to be here.

Vasa (00:47.045)
Likewise, this is the first time I've had anybody that's writing checks on the show and I'm excited to ask some questions about the state of investing and startup companies and what you're excited about in the world.

Brian Folmer (01:00.556)
Yeah, it's exciting time right now, but I'll share everything I know or everything I'm seeing.

Vasa (01:06.333)
How have things changed in recent years? know that investors are being a little bit more diligent in their bets. There's a lot of dry powder, so they say, still sitting on the sidelines. What's the state of investing in venture right now?

Brian Folmer (01:24.11)
I would say things are pretty good. There have been a lot of exits in the past eight to 12 months. And so every time one of those headlines hits the airwaves, it gets people excited that, yeah, this is like an asset class that produces returns that are worth diving into. And so, yeah, all these exits have been great for just

bring some liquidity back to the market. And then second is just the market in general is up. I mean, was it the S &P and Dow or everything's at all time highs? And so I have found that whenever the markets basically ripping, everyone's in a good mood, including investors. I don't know if it's them just seeing their portfolios up and feeling a little bit more risky or they're maybe at the same time thinking like, I'm good at making money. I'm going to press my luck here.

And so yeah, when the market's up, I find that angels and investors in general are more excited to write their next check.

Vasa (02:30.845)
That's interesting. Is there any sort of similar characteristics with crypto in the market with investors writing checks?

Brian Folmer (02:40.504)
I mean, when crypto is up in the smart crypto coin holders are not huddling as they say, I will see some money come over from the crypto world to the like VC investing world. But at same time, when crypto is down, they're not making many moves. so, but yeah, there's a correlation there I'd say.

Vasa (03:04.441)
Is, are there investors that are investing crypto into brands? I've had people in the past say, I'd love to send some crypto as my investment. They have to cash it out first and then invest it, right? That's because some sort of tax law or something. Is that how it goes?

Brian Folmer (03:21.102)
Yeah, I haven't really seen a brand take a crypto like coin investment from an investor like, hey, I'll just wire you a coin and then you can do what you want with that. I've never seen that before. think they always have to just cash it out and then put it in the hard US dollars and then invest.

Vasa (03:38.343)
Super interesting. I wonder if that's a thing, because some people are huddling their coins and probably would be a little bit more receptive to shipping over a Bitcoin versus saying, I'm going to cash this out, because then it becomes real once you cash it out, in my opinion.

Brian Folmer (03:52.328)
Yeah, I mean, we're not, I don't know, I feel like we're not too far away from that. Yeah, crypto is really having a moment right now. And I know all the engineers out there are feverishly trying to like make everything in this ecosystem more user friendly. And so I imagine it's having crypto investors invest into early stage startups is something that they're thinking about right now.

Vasa (04:18.845)
I feel like it would be a good move for startup brands. I'm not going to say that I haven't gone down this path, but I feel like people that invested in NFTs, people that are constantly trading, and you've heard the stories of people going from 10K to like 2 million, and like, do I do now? I think that they would be more like of a backup plan to get capital into brands if interested. I wonder if brands start exploring that a little more.

Brian Folmer (04:46.99)
Yeah. I mean, I think there's definitely some smarter crypto investors out there who realize I need to diversify a little bit more. So they will cash out and then it's like, all right, I'm actually gonna put this money into like, you know, conservative bets that will grow five, 10 % every year. But then they also look at the VC ecosystem and I'll blame them. mean, you kind of have to be a little bit of a wild card to be playing in crypto. And so if you have that risk tolerance,

BC is a pretty good spot to also get that same adrenaline rush.

Vasa (05:21.817)
What's the benchmark that VCs look for? I saw some of your recent LinkedIn posts, and I know that if a VC gets in early on a brand, let's just say seed or pre-seed, not pre-revenue, what are they looking for as an exit when that happens in terms of a multiple on their investment?

Brian Folmer (05:43.214)
So when someone comes in at the C stage or which stage?

Vasa (05:46.865)
Yeah, if a VC comes in early, let's just say seed stage for ease, are they looking for a hundred bagger on that or what's the multiple they're looking for when that's all said and done?

Brian Folmer (05:57.678)
I mean, I think they all hope for a hundred bagger, of course. Otherwise, if you, I mean, honestly, the true answer is it depends on the structure of the firm in that.

What's their strategy for how many bets they're placing and how much capital it goes into each bet. And so typically though, I would say with most firms is every single one of their investments needs to return the entire firm if it were to exit. And so if you're only placing 10 bets a year, each one of those bets, and say you have a $10 million fund, you put a million dollars in each one, you want to get at least

bare minimum, a 10 X out of that single investment to get back to a one extra turn, which a one extra turn is not going to be getting any LPs excited, but at least you're bringing money back or giving their money back, which a lot of VC investors actually lose money for their LPs. and so, yeah, it really comes down to. Will this investment, if it goes well, return enough capital to cover

every single one of our losers, which every single one of their ads may become a loser. And so if they're, you know, $50 million fund, your bet has to at least return 50 million. And that's just the starting.

Vasa (07:24.477)
Interesting way of looking at it. You made a couple bets recently. The absorption company and Slate,

Brian Folmer (07:33.666)
Yep. Yep.

Vasa (07:35.069)
What made you excited about those two work? It's awesome seeing you on LinkedIn saying, we just fired it up. What makes you excited about those two?

Brian Folmer (07:46.222)
Slate Milk was, I mean, they're just crushing in terms of like traction and just expanding the brand velocities, everything. And so obviously we always love traction that is going up into the right. I also liked the, what is a, I guess a moat or an advantage that they have that would make it tough for incumbent brands to compete is the actual product or the production.

of the product itself. And so the ultra filter milk is not something that a ton of co-men can do. And so it just gives them a head start or at least makes it more difficult for a brand to come in and compete against them. Because yeah, it's only so many people in the U S do that. I also like that everything they do is in the United States. They don't have to worry about tariffs or anything. And so I guess third part would be protein and just better ingredients are certainly.

I think the future and so their product kind of checked all the boxes for us. And then for the absorption company, again, I like to invest in companies that have an identifiable boat. And so with the absorption company, they use this unique food technology called capsoil that helps your body absorb nutrients, minerals, vitamins, everything at a way better rate than traditional.

absorption rates for all those things. And so that gave them a clear advantage to her from marketing perspective and from a value perspective to consumers of like, this is going to actually absorb in your body and not just be wasted or pissed away. so, and I just love their name. I think it's perfect for what they're doing. And so, yeah, both companies though, had a moat that I could identify that was more than just purely branding.

Vasa (09:41.319)
Very cool. And going back to Slate, there's been a lot of stuff out there. And one thing I want to touch on, what we can touch on, obviously we don't want to talk about things that we can't. There's always a risk with any brand when they get started in choosing the right coman. I fortunately have a really, really good one. And I own the formulas for Perfee. There are times where brands don't own their own formulas. And there are times where comans

do things that are suboptimal for their clients. Recently, there has been in the news things about Slate having perhaps a comand that may have used their formula to create their own brand that's now in Costco. What can you share about that, if anything?

Brian Folmer (10:29.452)
Yeah, I mean, I saw the article too and certainly frustrating for the brand to have to deal with that. From my understanding, I think the brand's in a pretty good spot as far as the argument that they're making to the court systems of why we were disadvantaged or basically infringed upon for what we're building or our product. so

Obviously things are still going to have to go to trial and everyone has to present their case, but everything that I've understood from the company and talking to their team and everything, I think they're in a pretty good spot to make their case.

Vasa (11:14.685)
I find it a terrible situation, but I personally find a connection to this whole story because I've been turned down by a retailer that said, look too much like this brand. You look too much like this brand. So we added real fruit to the cans. We got rid of the cute little illustrations and we resubmitted, still got shut down. And it's another excuse. It's like, it's all good. can't get into every retailer when you want to. And sometimes you have to wait a little while, but I find it super interesting that

It was a subjective, you kind of look like this brand. We don't want to bring you on. And then there's a very objective. This company stole our formula and they're still getting authorized in accounts. How the hell does that make sense where it's a facsimile of our product? Well, for the most part, and they're getting yeses where we have illustrated fruit and we can't get a yes. It cracks me up.

Brian Folmer (12:07.854)
Yeah, I don't know what retail buyers or how they think about that. I imagine though, they basically kind of look at it as like, all right, we'll bring in, we'll try to make as much money from you as we can. And then if things don't work out in your lawsuit, then we'll just go with the guy who won the lawsuit and that'll be it. And so I don't, yeah, I don't, I'm not saying there's not a switching costs for the retailer, but I imagine they're just like.

We're just gonna try to make money until this all gets settled, may be, you know, year, two, three years down the road. Then, yeah, retailers just wanna make money.

Vasa (12:43.645)
Yeah, I get it, but it's just the necessity to make money, 100%, every business needs to do that. And then the marketing of we're looking for authentic brands who have true stories that are really differentiated, that bring value to our customer. And it's not really the case when you really look into it, or if you're in the know. There's something I think about all the time, probably a little bit too much.

Brian Folmer (13:07.518)
Yeah, retailers and investors, everyone kind of has, I don't know, I'm not going to call it fluff how they describe things, but at the end of the day, we're all just here to make money. Obviously we want to do good for the planet and feel good about ourselves. But it's like, if you're just flying off the shelves, that's like, it's like the saying goes, sales cures all.

And so I really do think that that's the number one metric that I any retailer or investor cares about is, is this moving?

Vasa (13:45.625)
I don't think there's anything out there with this particular brand that allegedly copied the formula of one of your portfolio companies being invested in. But what would it be like if a peer of yours were like, hey, we really want to get behind this brand. And there was a little bit of shade in how that brand was created. that be a weird thing for you? What would you say to that person? Or would you just leave it as is? Everyone wants to make money.

Brian Folmer (14:16.354)
Are you saying a founder creates a brand and investor I know wants to put money into them?

Vasa (14:21.757)
So if a brand was created off of stolen IP and a VC invested in that brand under the guise of, we just want to make money, similar to how retailers do the same thing, we're going to bring this on and we'll take the winner of the lawsuit, blah, blah, blah, blah. What about if that brand was invested into, strictly off stolen IP? I guess you can argue that a lot of brands copy each other then, right?

Brian Folmer (14:44.012)
Yeah, I'm sure the investors would probably ask themselves like, where's the risk in this? Like, can this all of sudden go to zero overnight? Because if there is a lawsuit down the road, but like you said, I mean, all brands inspire all future brands. so there is also like a moral line that everyone's different as far as, yeah, some people are a lot more on the savage side and they're like,

I'm here to make money and some people are like, I care about my sleep and I don't want to invest in something like that. And so it kind of just depends on who the actual investor is and what they think the risk is long-term.

Vasa (15:25.597)
Yeah, crazy stuff, crazy stuff. What are some insights that you might share? You're always very, very gracious and generous with your thoughts on LinkedIn, but some people that may not read those posts. What are some three bullet points that you can share for putting together a deck before you send it out to somebody?

Brian Folmer (15:52.014)
So that's a question. would say number one is to keep your deck short and sweet. I find that the more you talk, the more you look needy and the more you look needy, the less appealing an opportunity feels. The flip side of that is if you really do have a great idea or great product, great company, and you really understand the space that you're building in, you should be able to distill down

what you're building into something that's like easy to understand. mean, that's, that's what makes, uh, someone an expert in the space is they can take a, what is a complicated topic and synthesize it down so that, uh, you know, a 10 year old can understand it. And so, yeah, short and sweet in the deck, which is also frustrating because I know we want to put stuff in the deck that gets an investor excited. Uh, but at the same time, you know, decks do get

I'm not saying investors just willy-nilly forward decks to anyone else. There are certainly investors who do forward decks though. And usually it's from a good place. They want to get a second opinion, but you see so many decks these days that you just remember, you don't remember where you saw something, but you did see it. And then you kind of bring it up to someone else and it's just how the way it goes. so, yeah, you have to keep some of the juicy things out. But don't be afraid to.

Also put some juicy things in because at the end of the day, execution truly is everything. But you will miss investors because some folks just go off of purely reading the deck and that's it. They all like to say, Oh, you know, founders, number one thing that we care about. I find that a lot of folks just read decks and don't actually make time to speak to founders. And I get it. There's only so many minutes in the day. so, um, but if you're just looking at a deck and making a decision and not.

speaking to the founder, you may be missing out on some great opportunities. And so yeah, first is keep his deck short, sweet. Second, I would say is the why now. That is probably one of the most important slides because it's all, know, when a company does get to the point where they reach an exit, we all look back and we realized, wow, their why now slide was totally spot on. And so, you

Brian Folmer (18:20.002)
Poppy, for example, I don't know what their slides looked like back then, but Gut Health was, I think something they've been leaning into for a long, long time. so an investor seeing their brand in 2016 or 17, whenever they started, you had to believe, all right, is Gut Health going to become a big story over the next 10 years? And yeah, obviously there's evidence that you can point to. And certainly a lot of times why now is or not.

correct and that's why the company doesn't do well. But when they are right, hopefully they're right big. And so the why now yeah, ends up being this, you know, it's almost the way I kind of always frame it is what's your big bet or what's your thesis where if you are right, you're going to be laughing all the way to the bank. And if you're not, well, probably don't go that well. And so, yeah, having a really strong why now I think is a great number two for what's important in the deck. And the number three is.

Brian Folmer (19:23.278)
I mean, I almost had to kind of split this up on like the team slide, which is tough to like, I don't know, put yourself or your personality or who you are out there on a slide where investors truly appreciate it. I usually always recommend having a little bit of a personal passion story of why you started the brand. And then kind of the next part of the slide is your experience and why everything you've done before this has perfectly led you to build this company.

But the problem slide would probably be three point or the other half of number three, which is, yeah, people, you know, they say like, what is this product? What problem is this product solving for me? What's the job to be done? And so, if it is a identifiable problem, ultimately it's, this is why people are going to open up their wallets and hand me money for my product. And so if there's not a problem there, it does become tough. The asterisk on this is.

There are companies out there where the problem is just not that potent, but people just spend money in weird ways. But typically those companies don't last. so, yeah, having a really identifiable reason why someone would open up their wallet and hand you money for your product, I think is pretty important.

Vasa (20:43.931)
find the problem to be hugely important, but I think there are some good points out there where I forgot who wrote an article recently, like not everything needs to solve a problem. I think of brands that like just do things a little bit better. Like I know Stu from Gigantic does a really good candy bar and he's launching it in a new way soon. And it's just a better candy bar. It's not the biggest, like it's not really solving any world issue. I think of like Kushi.

Brian Folmer (20:54.882)
Yeah, I agree.

Vasa (21:11.623)
croutons, like they're just a sourdough crouton. That sourdough is not really solving anything. I guess you can argue it's better for digestion because it's sourdough. I find that there's some cool brands out there, like Glow Nuts, I think there's a fun one. I think her tagline or their tagline is healthy but who cares or something like that. I think that some brands can exist without it and then some can exist with solving a huge problem. At Quest, I know that they had a very lofty goal. The Quest, literally when he walked in the office,

It said the definition of quest and then the goal was to end metabolic disease and yeah, that's lofty Yeah, that's like almost like yeah, no one's gonna do that How are you gonna tie that back to your product? But they truly did solve a lot of people's problems as it came to like obesity diabetes And that's where I'm at with perfias. There's two main problems. There's a mental health crisis There's diabetes and there's this huge GLP one wave all of these things are colliding This drink is kind of in the center of that Venn diagram and it's so hard to put that into one slide the problem

crazy stuff, crazy stuff, crazy stuff, here's Perfie. It's just a soda, it's just a drink, you know? And I don't know what to do or how to consolidate that without going into the history of diabetes, where it's most prevalent. Mental health and the tie-in between people who have diabetes, 70 % of them claim to have some sort of mental health issue. There's a huge, huge overlap. And I think it's too complex of a subject to put in one slide, let alone...

Investors don't even want to have conversations along with those intro decks.

Brian Folmer (22:41.779)
Yeah. Well, let me ask you, how would you describe what your your your big bet where if it's right?

Vasa (22:47.409)
My big bet is on GLP-1 and diabetes. Right now, nearly half of America is pre-diabetic, type 1 diabetic or type 2 diabetic. Over 100 million people, I think, at this point are pre-diabetic, and 80 % of those people don't even know. So they're waking up, fasted for 8, 10 hours or whatever it is they slept, and their blood sugar's probably in the 130s. I was that way, and then I fixed it in five weeks. And that's huge problem because that then leads to type 2, and there's an episode, I think it was episode 3 on the Food Chain podcast with...

Dr. Ryan Lowry and he talks about type 3 diabetes and that's dementia, Alzheimer's and things that happen to us later in life because of the things that we do earlier in life as it pertains to glucose. So I think it's a huge bet is we make a soda that doesn't spike blood sugar and type 1, type 2 diabetics are testing it and posting about it and they're posting even competitors. I don't share those ones because I don't want beef because I'll get blown out of the water with those budgets, but like I want no beef. But I do want to point out that it solves something. And I think one of the biggest gripes that I have with

CPG today is there's no tie back. There's no like hey, how many of these beverages need to be sold for people to claim and for there to be a statistic on how much gut health has been solved? Like how much irritable bowel syndrome has been fixed? How much X, Y, and Z? With Perfie, you can actually guide people to make decisions that reverse their pre-diabetes or reverse their type 2 diabetes. Those are measurable things and it's crazy to me. I think it's a lack of education and passion on the subject.

I've been doing this for 12 years since Quest. I think it's that sort of lack of passion that gets Perfie looked over in these types of conversations.

Brian Folmer (24:20.462)
Yeah, I would add too, the nice thing about perfy is, so I call it pop, not soda, but.

Brian Folmer (24:30.062)
people are still always gonna want soda or like, you know, a pop during their day. I drink one every day. I'm a Diet Coke fan. And so it's like part of our routine. And I think we're all right now trying to make little tweaks to our routines throughout the day to have a healthier lifestyle. And so I think perfectly fits really well with where the world's going of like, this is a habit that a lot of people have that they don't want to give up, but they will make little tweaks to their habits.

And that's where burpee comes in.

Vasa (25:00.637)
Yeah, I agree. I think the number one reason people splurge on a anywhere like red smart and final at a buck 87 to some places in New York, I think, but 349, which is wild, our SRP is 299. But I think people will splurge because it kind of scratches that itch for them. I have this graph that I post every here and there on LinkedIn where people go from Coke to Coke Zero or Diet Coke to La Croix and they leave Coke because of the high fructose corn syrup, which will now be cane sugar.

They leave Diet Coke or Coke Zero because of the artificial sweeteners. They jump all the way over to a sparkling water, and no offense to sparkling water, but a lot of them don't have a lot of flavor, especially La Croix. I love shitting on them a little bit. So there's a dual opportunity for the Olly Pops, the Poppies, the Culture Pops, the Maya Wells, or whoever to win in that center part where people are transitioning from a diet beverage to a sparkling water, because people are going after that flavor. What do you got, Waterloo? Yeah.

Brian Folmer (25:40.174)
you

Brian Folmer (25:55.214)
I my Diet Coke and my Waterloo. And you're right, there's nothing in between. like Diet Coke or Waterloo. There's, yeah, not a halfway. There's no midway point between them.

Vasa (26:07.687)
So, and the cool part about, I think some of these modern sodas is they have some element of sugar or calories to them. I think that, you know, people argue that Diet Coke and Coke have zero calories. They gotta be healthy. But there's something that happens with your pancreas when you drink something that sweet that has no nutritive value. And it starts secreting insulin. develop insulin resistance. If you drink a ton of them. People always argue that it's this artificial sweetener that's not gonna kill you. You need to drink like a million of them to actually have some sort of carcinogenic effect.

It's what it does to your pancreas, in my opinion, that's the most important, and it's tricking it into thinking that it's consuming sugar.

Brian Folmer (26:43.052)
It makes you hungry down there.

Vasa (26:43.293)
I'm not gonna lie, man. Every once in a while, like I've got an empty 24 pack of Coke Zero over there. I'm a Coke Zero guy, not a Diet Coke, no offense, but I'll drink it. Every once in while, I'll buy them again and I'll go through them in like a week. They're just so awesome. Just so awesome just to guzzle them down.

Brian Folmer (26:52.664)
Hmm.

Brian Folmer (27:01.102)
I know, it's like, yeah, everyone's just trying to blend that like, how do I not give up what makes me feel good, but also put in effort to care about my health? You know, it's like this ongoing battle between the two.

Vasa (27:17.181)
Yeah, there's, I think there's a good argument to be made that like, if you think about like Ron Penna from Quest Nutrition and Legendary Foods, I don't think I've ever seen him drink water in my life. And this guy looks like the Terminator. He's got, he's just jacked. He's probably in his 60s now, probably 220 with like zero body fat. And I've only ever seen him drink diet sodas and I've known him for 12 years. And I got to know man, how does that even happen where he's so healthy? He's like the exception to the rule in my opinion, because

He does science, he knows all of that stuff, but man, looks healthier than hell.

Brian Folmer (27:52.566)
Yeah, there's exceptions everywhere though. It's so funny how like, yeah, every like, obviously, I know in the VC world, investors have like hardest hard, hard, fast rules, but then there's always an exception to that rule or exception to like, you know, a founder that did pull it off in a certain way. There's exceptions to everything. And I know it's exhausting to say the least.

Vasa (28:15.229)
Do you think that investing is kind of like recruiting in sports? I view you guys and retail buyers as recruiters in a way. Like the people that are looking for the Steph Curry before they're the Steph Curry that changed the game of basketball. The people that are finding the gold in the third and fourth round picks. Steph was a first round pick, but like in football, every year there's somebody that's drafted or undrafted that is epic. Brock Pretty was Mr. Irrelevant. I Brady went in the sixth round.

A lot of good players have gone second, third, and fourth rounds. Do you guys view yourselves as people that are scouts and looking for diamonds in the rough?

Brian Folmer (28:54.562)
Yeah, 100%. that'd be funny you asked this question, cause I think about this a lot as far as like deal flow. Like what is that? What does that even mean? The way I kind of see it is there's two sides of the coin. There's inbound and outbound. Outbound is, you know, going to the events or if you're a firm having your analysts or associates reach out to people, it's

sending cold DMS or emails. It's like actively trying to go find the diamonds in the rough, as you kind of describe. Uh, and the other side is inbound, which that comes in a lot of forms as well. It's other investors referring brands to you. It's brands themselves finding you. It's it's kind of other services out there that helps startups meet other investors, uh, them reaching out or letting you know about brands. And so, uh,

So there's inbound and outbound. And the interesting thing, or at least the way I see it is that a firm or an investor should probably be making an effort to work on both sides of that coin. And so you certainly want to an effort to, yeah, find these great brands, do your homework. But at the same time, you also want to make sure that brands are finding you. And so I think brands...

I always think of an example of a founder where say you invent zero calorie alcohol. You literally break the laws of physics. You know, you have a winner here. Like this is insane. You know, what's your first move as a founder? You know, you have a winner on your hands. Well, you're probably going to go do some homework on the internet and figure out, right, which of the investors out there are the best ones that are going to help me reach an exit. And so.

And that can come from a couple of different ways. You could be just a tier one investor where when you invest, brings a lot of respect and variety to you and gets other investors involved because they see a 16 Z invested or best summer index. or the other side is, you know, wow, this investor brings a really unique value add that I want to tap into. And so like easy example would be Harry Stebbins and the 20 VC podcast, anyone that he invests in.

Brian Folmer (31:21.612)
he can put on the podcast and bring tens of millions of listeners to that brand, which helps with recruiting talent, with sales, with bringing in more investor dollars. so, yeah, think having a great value add is going to be super important for investors to bolster their inbound. You can always do outbound, don't get me wrong, but there's founders out there that are just in...

crevices of the ecosystem that you're not looking. So you always want to make sure there's a reason for them to find you or to shoot you an email first before they email other investors. so, yeah, DealFlow is a really interesting game to compete in, I guess.

Vasa (32:08.783)
I want to get back to the deck in a sec, but I just have a funny thing to share. I joined a site called Ask for Funding and I already canceled it, but I had a really interesting and funny experience where I got a response on that. was like, this is great. There's a response. And it ended up being an auto spam blocker from somebody who signed up to be on there, full knowing that they're going to get cold messages from people who are

asking for funding and it says your email has been filtered as a cold email that didn't make it through sign up for whatever this service is to to to break through the noise and make it make it through the cold email filter whatever that was i was like i respond i was like he literally signed up for this site and has an email connected to it that i can't see but i can say message person or whatever i just thought that was so funny and the small microcosm of my experience in the fundraising world is that sort of stuff

Anyway, I want go back to the deck. There's two things I forgot to ask you. One, you've helped me with this personally early on with Perfie. You have a very interesting way of thinking about the team slide. And I'll let you tell it, but it was along the lines of whether it should be front-loaded or back-loaded in a deck. And you have a particular preference on that. Can you share more about it?

Brian Folmer (33:34.008)
Yeah.

Brian Folmer (33:38.296)
There's no right answer here, but some things to consider. If you have a awesome team for what you're building, you can essentially get away with putting the slide anywhere. Cause every slide, you get, as you go, someone goes through a deck, you want them to keep getting more and more excited. And then when they get to the very end, they're like, Holy smokes, this is awesome. Take my money. And so if you have a not so great team.

And the team slide is at the end. it's like, wow, this is great, great, great, great. And this team is awesome idea, but I don't know about this team. And now you've kind of ended your slide or your deck with like a softer note. We have a great team slide. Then it's like, wow, this is great. Awesome. Everything else. I'm thinking, and great team. Holy smokes. All right. I'm in. You could also, if you have a great team, put that in the beginning of the deck because it adds. Validity to.

what investors are going to see the rest of the deck. so if someone's building rockets that mine gold off of comets and they worked at Tesla, they were part of the first five employees at Tesla ever. If I know that right off the bat in the deck, I'm going to be like, wow, this guy or girl is legit. And so everything they say the rest of the deck, I'm going to take with a lot more respect because I know that they know obviously what they're talking about. And so yeah.

Not a perfect answer here. It kind of depends on what your strengths are as a founder and what you're building. But that's kind of the way to think about it is you always want to end the deck on a high note. so depending on kind of depends on where you want to put the team's lab, but you can put it in the beginning or the end.

Vasa (35:24.925)
That's what I was hoping for. And that's exactly how you described it to me in the past was you like finishing off on a strong note, especially with good experience. If not, know, pop it in the front or whatever. But I appreciate that. I forgot the other thing I wanted to ask regarding the deck. So we'll just move on from that. We'll just move on from it. What are some things that you're seeing with founders? Oh, that's what it was. I was just going right into it.

Should founders have two decks? One, the short one that's like, hey, are you interested? And then a larger one. And then same question, what about for cold and warm intros? If you're cold emailing a deck as a PDF or whatever people prefer, should you have a different deck than your main one? What does that look like for you? And what's the best way to go about it for other founders that might be listening?

Brian Folmer (36:17.294)
Yeah, I would have a, an intro deck and a longer extended deck. First off, never call your deck a teaser deck. No one likes to be teased. Just call it an intro deck. That's number one. but yeah, I would have an intro deck because you know, the storytelling process involves bringing people in more and more and more. If you give away everything upfront where there's like nothing exciting left to talk about when you get on a call, then it's like,

Investors just like I, endorphins have peaked. There's nothing I'm not, I'm not continuing to get excited here. And so I would always suggest starting out with an intro deck. And then when they say, yeah, let's jump on the call. Then you can send them a little bit more of a late, like a longer deck so that there's a little bit more for them to appreciate and ask more questions about. but you always want to leave a little bit of like little bit of room left to elaborate yourself.

And so that's why I sell our founder, you know, each slide, great, has this information, but you as the founder should have an extra, maybe one or two or three things in your back pocket on each slide that aren't there that you can add to the slide as you're speaking about it. Cause otherwise then it's the, are we talking about here? If everything's already on the deck. so, yeah, I would have two decks, one short, one longer, use the shorter one when you're emailing.

cold emailing investors. Cause you never know who's invested in what. That's the other thing too. And so you don't want to give away anything that's too juicy to someone who's invested in potentially a competitor.

Vasa (38:03.387)
Yeah, that's for sure. I definitely had a couple instances of that. And some of them were known beforehand, later on in my pervy life. What are some predictions you have for this year, next year, with brands maybe having big exits? I'll share some of mine after you.

Brian Folmer (38:27.352)
which brand like which maybe will have an exit.

Vasa (38:30.737)
Yeah,

Brian Folmer (38:33.678)
I would say beatbox. feel like they're, I keep seeing more and more positive like content or headlines coming out for them. And yeah, I got a feeling they're like on the brink. So yeah, that would be an interesting one. Obviously Brez is tearing it up. I think Aaron has big ambitions to build a huge brand, but at same time, you know, I could also see an investor.

striking early and getting a little bit of a deal on it compared to how big it really could get. And so I just did a post on how UGG the brand was bought for $15 million and now it's worth like, I don't know, $15 billion or something ridiculous. so, uh, so I keep thinking about that. Yeah. Well, some investors may be trying to buy brands a little bit earlier than they normally would. And then who else is doing.

Those are like the main two that I probably think about the most right now. But definitely Beatbox. I got a feeling they're due. They're so due.

Vasa (39:41.277)
I'm circling that right now. Real quick on Uggs. So Decker Brands, we had one of their main marketing guys come in and do like inspirational meetings with us when I was at Outer Isle. And there was one time, I can't get too much into the story, one, because I don't remember it, and two, I probably shouldn't share it. But it was something along the lines of like operational craziness across international. It was particularly for the Uggs brand.

And it's so crazy to me talking about this story because at that time when he was giving us this like whole executive, you know, presentation, Hoka wasn't their number one brand yet. And it was like really all about Uggs. And he was, and we're trying to get this, you know, Hoka brand, it's growing, but that was in 2019. And since then it's grown so much. I've been trying to get him on this podcast to share more about it. I'm going to keep bugging him, but that's just a small little Easter egg there. How crazy that.

Brian Folmer (40:20.824)
Mm-hmm.

Vasa (40:38.013)
Hoke is taking off.

Brian Folmer (40:40.792)
Yeah, yeah, they're another example. I did think of one more for whom I could acquire is IQ bar.

Vasa (40:48.411)
Yes.

Brian Folmer (40:50.284)
Will is a machine to say the least. yeah, and they haven't, I don't think taking much funding either for a while, certainly. And so it's one of those things where like, even if they take a deal, we're like, yeah, they could go larger and have like a zillion dollar exit, but like, even if you sell for like $600 million, like Will's gonna do great. All the investors are gonna do great.

They have that they are in a fortunate place where they could maybe sell a little bit earlier than then. So many other brands that have just taken on so much cash that you need to have a huge exit. Will's really built that company and they can a smart way. And so, I hope that's for the best room.

Vasa (41:36.743)
I actually have a prediction on who they go to, because I wanted to cover this in the newsletter, but I'll share it here first. So I think that they're going to go to Simply Good Foods along with Quest and Owen. And I think it makes a ton of sense because Owen hasn't quite built out a meaningful barcode. don't think that Owen has bars at all. I think they're just RTDs. And Quest doesn't have a strong vegan bar. So I'm pretty, I'm almost, my memory serves me correct, it's pea protein, not whey protein, and IQ bar.

Brian Folmer (41:44.035)
Yeah.

Vasa (42:06.363)
And I think that Simply Good Foods would be a great tag on.

Brian Folmer (42:10.446)
Yeah, that's good.

Vasa (42:11.549)
That's my prediction. My other two, think former client of my agency, think Maddox-man has to pull the trigger in the next year or two. I think by the end of 2026, that'll be the news. I think that Legendary Foods at some point, Ron will get another billion. And no one talks about Legendary Foods enough. I was there for a little bit as their director of marketing. He was gracious enough to bring me back after I left Quest. they, Ron.

And he doesn't go for the attention either. You probably will never see him on our podcast. He sold Quest for a billion cash, and then Legendary Foods will probably be another one. That's at least that. One thing I would say with all of these predictions, and you kind of hinted on it with IQ Bar and Breeze, is sometimes people get a little greedy. And I've seen it happen multiple times in my career where I had a group that said, as soon as we can get 60 million for this, we're selling it.

And then within years it was, now we gotta get a billion for it. And then ended up being pretty close to nada. Greed can really fuck with things. And I hope that some of these founders with these bad ass brands, I think Will and Aaron are both profitable for how large they are. Man, I would ship it, but that's just me talking from the bleachers.

Brian Folmer (43:16.942)
I know.

Brian Folmer (43:30.03)
Yeah. Yeah. I mentioned that's what, uh, uh, for Mella Dominic, uh, he just saw a great opportunity because, uh, cause yeah, they hadn't raised a ton of capital, which I assume he means East alone is a huge chunk of it. And so I imagine he was just like, this is a great opportunity. We're going to take it. And yeah, that, which is a good reminder to founders. Like when you raise a ton of capital, does become, it narrows the world that

you can live in at the end of the day while living in a less capital, more lean lifestyle does give you optionality in places you don't realize until later on.

Vasa (44:12.231)
Yeah, for sure. I covered the liquid death, how they raised a ton of money, I think really the only way for everyone to get back all of the money that they want to is if they go public, but I took a stab on if maybe they didn't. I bet Red Bull. But even, I think these kind of micro acquisitions in a way have, I know Gen Z Water sold to Langer a couple years ago, really early on. As soon as they hit line to target, they sold. I feel like it's gonna be a more common thing. think a dozen cousins just sold, and a few others. Tia Lupita just sold too.

Brian Folmer (44:42.99)
Yeah, there's been like 17 or 18 brands that have gone through first look that have actually been acquired. Obviously some of them are acquires or, you maybe investors got one or two extra money back, but, uh, but yeah, there's more acquisitions than people realize, but obviously it's the big name ones that are the huge money drivers that get people excited.

Vasa (45:04.401)
Very specific question, no worries if you want to pass on this one because it's super specific.

What is more risky about a startup brand with some traction? Not the crazy trill in 12 that some investors want, but let's just title that as risky. Why is that more risky than a brand that's raised and raised and raised, but needs to come back to the well maybe a little bit too soon? Isn't that riskier because of liquidity preferences and how much that company needs to sell for after that total amount of money is raised, whatever that may be?

That happened recently and I couldn't figure it out in my head why Perfume might have been more of a risk.

Brian Folmer (45:52.046)
So the question is,

Vasa (45:54.779)
What's more risky about a brand that hasn't raised a lot, that doesn't have quite the trailing 12 or the quote unquote traction that an investor might want? What's more risky about that versus a brand that may have that trailing 12 but is coming back to the well pretty quickly?

Brian Folmer (46:10.862)
I would say with some brands, you kind of already know it's going to be cash intensive. so it's almost like I'm not going to do a very good job of articulating this, even though I oddly think about it a lot, is like, what game are you playing as a founder? Are we playing this game where we're going to build something that has an absolutely massive exit, but we know it's going to take a lot of capital to get there? And so that's the story you're telling, or that's the field that you're playing on.

versus we're playing this game where we're gonna be, you know, more, we're gonna raise as much. We're gonna be a little bit more thoughtful with our moves and we'll still end up hopefully in the same place, maybe not as quickly, but that's the game we're playing. And investors who join will hopefully do better because they're not gonna be, you know, diluted as much because there's not as much capital that's coming into the company over the long run.

And so, yeah, it just kind of depends on what game you're playing as a founder. And there is no right or wrong game. I would say some types of products do require you to more likely than not play one game over another. but yeah, it kind of just depends on like the strategy that the investor thinks is happening in front of them and whether they like it or not. Some people don't like those like companies where, yeah, we're going to pour a shit ton of money into this company.

But we're gonna have a big exit and so that's the story here. Some people don't like that. Some people like the opposite

Vasa (47:41.533)
Fair enough. Before we go, we got to give some love to First Look. We talked about First Look Ventures and how you view things as an investor. First Look is a monthly box where founders send their products to potential investors. Tell me more about that. How do people join? How do founders get their product in your hands? All that good stuff.

Brian Folmer (48:02.636)
Yeah, mean, first looks, things are going great. We have over 80 people or 80 investors getting our boxes now. And I made the update in the beginning of this year to make it completely free for all brands, which has been going great. And so it's just now it's at the point where if you don't want to jump in the boxes, you're essentially saying, I don't want to put my hand, my product in the hands of wealthy people who like to share in chat. I think you'd be pretty insane as a founder to

not want that, but teach their own. Otherwise, yeah, things have been active. Nine of the brands in our boxes this year have landed investor checks through the first six months, which I think is great. I always tell founders first looks, silver bullet. I can't make the investors rate checks. can't change the fundraising environment or make them fall in love with your brand. But you know, best case scenario.

They do, and they write you a check and you're on your way. Worst case scenario is you have a, if you have a great product that converts, then you'll gain a bunch of customers going through the process. so brands just visit firstlook.vc to apply. then always looking for great investors as well to join the community. Cause one half of them is certainly the boxes, the shark tank in the box experience that they have. But I really leaned into building out the community side of things.

So we have a group chat that everyone's in, sharing deals, events, things they're seeing. I'm hosting events in all the major cities now, coffee meetups, happy hours, everything. And then I also have this service where I literally just connect two people in the group one-on-one every few weeks. And so it gives them a chance to grow, grab coffee themselves, build their networks, get into deals they would have otherwise missed. so yeah, Burslick's been going pretty well.

Kind of in a good spot, I guess.

Vasa (50:01.55)
I will link it in the show notes for you so people can apply if they're a brand or if any investors are seeing this they can jump in as well

Brian Folmer (50:09.102)
Yeah, no, that'd be great. Yeah, it's been, I set my five year anniversary in June and I feel like I have more clarity now than I ever had on like where I want to take things. Um, but at the end of the day, it's always going to back to supporting founders. Cause even though I dabble in the world of investing, uh, I'm a founder like many, like everyone else. And so, uh, I know the feeling of not having a ton of money, but wanting to do a ton of things. And so.

Yeah, but appreciate sharing First Look.

Vasa (50:44.003)
Awesome. Well, Brian, thank you for joining me. I really appreciate having your sage wisdom on the show. And we'll touch base again.

Brian Folmer (50:53.452)
Yeah, this is great. Appreciate you having me on. if you're ever in Cleveland, let me know. If you're assuming or perfect, perfect on me, I'll grab a case here. Cool. Yeah, sounds good. All right, boss.

Vasa (50:58.043)
Absolutely.

Sounds awesome. I'll buy the beers.