Q: Tell us a bit about your angel/investing history.

I immigrated to Canada in 1999 to attend the University of Toronto. It took a lot of hard work and sacrifice on my parents part to invest in me to come here and earn a degree. At university, I was sharing an apartment with two of my classmates. One of whom was living frugally and inspired me to live frugally and save money for investing.
By the time the 4 years at university were done, my housemate, I and a 3rd classmate put all the money we had, and the money we didn’t have together for downpayment to buy our first rental property. From then we continued on an aggressive growth path, I remember after closing the second property being so fully invested, that all I had was a ziplock bag of change that was just enough to pay for the bus to go to my day job.
Since that day in 2003, I have been buying, developing and leasing real estate. First as a side gig, later as a full-time job, and now I have workers helping me run it so I can focus on acquisitions and development.

Q: Do you have an investment philosophy?

I prefer tried and proven models, being an early adopter of a proven model has the best risk/reward. Not a big fan of being first.

Q: What’s your cheque size?

$ 10,000

Q: Why do you invest?

I am a fan of technology, there is little time to do everything you want to do, build every idea you think is good yourself. Investing let’s you be a part of it without the time commitment a founder needs to put in.

Q: What motto or paradigm would you like to share as a piece of “elevator advice” for founders?

If you are a founder, you must live, breath and love your company. You wake up and go to sleep thinking about it. It is the most important thing in your life. Grit, hard work, perseverance, ambition, and relentlessness. That is how companies are founded.
You have to know your space, every player, know the market and know your numbers.