In this episode of the Startup CPG Podcast, host Hannah Dittman sits down with Josh Wand and Sean Kelly, General Partners at the Family Fund, to explore what founders actually need to understand when navigating fundraising. The Family Fund is a deeply community-driven investment firm built by former founders who believe the best companies are built through trust, transparency, and long-term partnership.
Josh and Sean bring decades of firsthand entrepreneurial experience and an incredibly deep operator and founder network, which gives them a uniquely practical, grounded perspective on investing at the earliest stages. Throughout the conversation, they unpack why asking the right questions matters just as much as having the right answers, how to truly understand deal terms and power dynamics, and why knowing an investor's focus, incentives, and target stage is critical before bringing them onto your cap table.
The conversation covers the traits that consistently show up in great founders, the difference between early-stage problems (product-market fit, customer love) versus later-stage challenges (team scaling, professionalism, organizational structure), and how to think about alignment as your company grows. Josh and Sean also emphasize the importance of researching investors the same way you would research retail buyers—understanding their allocation strategy, stage focus, and whether they actually invest in your specific vertical and company size before pitching.
Throughout the episode, listeners gain tactical insights on essential questions to ask investors (like "walk me through a time one of your investments struggled and how you showed up"), why raising at too high a valuation can backfire and limit future funding options, critical deal terms to watch out for (liquidation preferences, redemption rights, founder vesting resets), and why founders should optimize for the next five years—not just winning the current round. Whether you're preparing for your first institutional fundraise or evaluating investor partners for a growth round, this conversation offers honest, hard-won insights from two investors who have been in the founder seat themselves.
Listen in as they discuss:
- Josh and Sean's backgrounds: 20+ years as entrepreneurs before co-founding Family Fund in 2022
- What Family Fund is: Early stage investor ($1-5M checks) with 60%+ founder and CEO LPs
- How fund cycles work and what Fund 1 vs. Fund 2 means for founders
- Why researching investors matters: treating it like researching retail buyers at Target
- Essential questions founders should ask investors before accepting capital
- Understanding critical deal terms: liquidation preferences, redemption rights, and founder vesting resets
- Why raising at too high a valuation backfires and limits future funding options
- Traits of great founders and early-stage vs. growth-stage problem differences
- Why the best founders optimize for the next 5 years—not just winning the current round
- Founderland 2026: Family Fund's annual gathering of 7,800+ founders, retailers, and strategics
Episode Links:
Website: https://www.humblegrowth.com/
Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-giannuzzi-6a550b14b/
Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/humblegrowth.com/
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Show Links:
- Transcripts of each episode are available on the Transistor platform that hosts our podcast here (click on the episode and toggle to “Transcript” at the top)
- Join the Startup CPG Slack community (30K+ members and growing!)
- Follow @startupcpg
- Visit host Hannah's Linkedin
- Questions or comments about the episode? Email Daniel at podcast@startupcpg.com
- Episode music by Super Fantastics
