Ali Hamed (CoVenture) - The Amazon Opportunity, Future of Social, and Credit at the Early Stages

My guest today is Ali Hamed, co-founder and Partner of CoVenture. CoVenture offers entrepreneurs multiple ways to finance their businesses. Ali is one of the more unique guests we've had on the show simply because CoVenture's model is quite unique as they can underwrite both equity and debt into technology startups. When Ali and I first got talking, he mentioned that he was consumer curious as opposed to a straight consumer investor. We'll unpack that on the show. We also talk about why Ali is so bullish on the Amazon rollups that have been happening, which social media companies are doing a great job appealing to creators and which aren't, and much much more.. Some of the questions I ask Ali: What was your initial attraction to finance and venture capital? How did CoVenture come together? When should consumer entrepreneurs think about credit options and financing vs. raising from traditional venture capital funds? Is credit as a resource underused in consumer startups? What about consumer makes you curious? Why do you think there is a huge opportunity in investing in Amazon as opposed to to Shopify businesses? For a brand on Amazon, how do you think about what is a competitive advantage? We've talked on this show about how you can't build a brand on Amazon. Are we now starting to see companies be able to build a DTC business outside of Amazon? Why do you hate Instagram? How do you think about the future of media and content? What must the legacy platforms do to service creators? How do you view the future of social and online interaction? We spoke about how music has changed to be shorter, and the song's duty is to hit to the chorus faster because you are optimizing for streams. When you look at other forms of content, what are ways technology has changed other formats? What's one piece about the creator economy that other investors might not understand? What's one thing you would change about venture capital? What's one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally? What's the best piece of advice that you've received?