I have been reading Angel by Jason Calacanis this past week. It is a book I have been waiting to be released for a long time. Jason is a well know Silicon Valley Investor who turned $100K USD in investments into $100M USD. He was an early investor in Uber, Thumbtack, Wealthfront and a few hundred other companies. This is his advice on how to be an Angel Investor. This has become much easier in recent years with crowd funding platforms like Angelist, SeedInvest and others. I stared investing in early stage startups in the past few years including a few deals with Jason. If anyone else does and wants to connect you can find me on Angellist.

I've also been having fun working on Grown Man Shave. It doesn't take too much of my time but sales are steadily continuing. I have to admit I get so excited when I get even the smallest order. My phone makes a cha-ching noise when I get an order. It makes me smile.

Today's Configuration: Leica M9-P with a Summicron 28mm f/2.0

I'm enjoying Alpha Beta Coffee Club in Jiyugaoka lately. They have an amazing Cold Brew called Nitro. You can feel your heart pounding when you finish drinking it. I really want to get one of these coffee making sets they use. They are going to be selling them in the future and I'll be one of their first customers.

I really want to understand the economics of parking lots in Japan. I think they must be used to hold the space while the developer is waiting for the buildings on other side to be ready to be sold. Even if this was 100% full you would only make $7,000 or so. More likely it would only be 50-60% full. Certainly you would make more putting up a building and renting it out but then you have the construction costs to consider. If anyone has invested in parking lots in Japan and knows about this please leave a comment and let me know.

Carl's Jr launched in Jiyugaoka. It's being positioned as premium. It was interesting the guy was trying to lure people in by highlighting that they sell beer and the sign in the background was highlighting a low calorie option without bread.

My local grocery store.

I spent a bit of time walking down streets in my neighborhood that I don't typically walk down. This boarded up house looks like a prison.

So many shops in Tokyo pop-up and are only open for a few months before shutting down. I don't know if people don't have proper business plans or just have a dream of owning a business even for a few months.