Basketball Courts and Ice Cream shops are a terrible investment, even in the beginning stages. There's no rush to get a huge IPH since most of your stats will come from scratchers (as well as a lot of your early cash)....no reason to waste gold on them. Most buildings are NOT optimal at level 5, and not all buildings are created equal. There are plenty you can skip. House and Tattoo Parlors should go to 10 while youre bringing your Italians to 7 or 8. By the time you plant a MT those are just about the only 3-4 buildings you need. After you get your lofts up, you can ditch the tattos and the houses. After your NC1 is as L2 you can sell off everything except the MTs and Lofts, if you want.
Skill points in ATK and DEF is awful advice. Your formula is also off by a factor of 10; it also maxes out at 10. For a level 10, if they put all skill points into ATK it will only have raised their stats by 51 points. That's a couple days worth of scratchers. Keep your skill points for energy and stamina - which actually do something.
