bkruse

haha - interesting edit that you have!

I currently have been making money the last 3 years by trading futures. It's been consistent, however, my co-founder of our fund has been trading for 20 years, lost his family, lost all his money, his house, everything. He was working at dominos when I took a little risk to give him some cash to trade, and boy was it a good decision. You could even say then, that the fooled by randomness theory exists - I was _really_ lucky to have found him and he was _really_ lucky to have been able to succeed. Regardless, it is possible. For every successful trader I personally know, I can give you 10 that majorly failed. It's human nature to want to try it - to be in (arguably) the most competitive business in the world. I offer my advice on where to start for free, but jumping into HFT in the really big markets is where people get crushed. Our current trading system can read a quote, send an order, and get confirmation about 2,000 times before you can blink! With that said, there are a lot of places (penny stocks, spread strategies, smaller equities) where you can thrive, and not have to trade against big machines. I will post to hackernews one day with an overview of his story and what we do

Will do - thank you.

Great - will do.

Ahh - agreed. Getting around PDT for $2,500 and having incredibly cheap leverage makes for an interesting market (though one bad trade and your done - you have to put it all on the line with such a small account)! Though if you do not have that much capital, jumping into futures/options trading against the best in the world - you will get your head chopped off. The far shot of a reality such as the one on reddit is not a good one to try to reproduce. I definitely recommend he read "Fooled by Randomness" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. While it's obviously a biased book (even just taking into account the title) - it does shed some light on the subject.

Hey gcv,

What do you mean, exactly, by starting a trading shop? If you mean becoming a broker dealer, that will require certificates and capital - and lots of it! :P

I own a company that currently indexes/sorts/sells different algo-based trending information to hedge funds. We also do big-data management for a few of them as well (think processing/storing 4 million messages/second). I'd be interested in some consulting and possibly a full-time position. We have excellent programmers/mathematicians now, but always like to bring on someone with some experience/new things to bring to the table. If you actually worked as a trader, we could get you on our prop floor with some stability track record. Respond here to gauge your interest, and I'll shoot you an email. Thanks!

If it's a potential 7-figure deal - go find a good merger and acquisition (M&A) attorney, it will be WELL worth your time and money. If you end up going through with the deal, you want to make sure you don't make reps and warranties that could damage you in the future. I've been through 2 acquisitions as a founder, once through a competitor. Part of any legitimate inquiry besides "just talk" is a term sheet. If this term sheet isn't under the NDA - you could shop it around a bit. They want you. The person that is willing to walk away has all the power. Definitely be skeptical at first - they have nothing to waste but time until the deal is signed. Don't be annoying when talking with them, but don't give away "trade secrets" - it's hard to advise without knowing the context of the business - but I'll try my best.

This is getting more into the valuation side, but if the multiple you speak of is based on 8x EBITDA because of some sort of recurring revenue/profit, then you could find investors elsewhere (easy). If it's based on an IP valuation and you are a company in debt and not making money, that's a different story. Just the fact that someone is interested in acquiring you (whether it's just a fishing expedition or legitimate) will bring confidence to other investors. Regardless, it's a personal decision. I always think of it like this - if you were to not take the deal, and your company went bankrupt in 2 years, or you did take the deal and your company grew 10x in 2 years - which would you rather do? If you are not ready to sell your company, then don't do it. In my last company, we got 3 potential buyers before we sold - everyone wants to buy a successful company (especially now that so much capital has been pulled out of the markets).

Regardless - congratulations. Whether this is fishing or real, it's a great milestone to reach - so be excited about it.