Lost and in need
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Jul 22, 2009 9:52 pm
Hi All,
About two months ago I saw an ad about joining a firm. After some brief communications the founder of the firm asked that I submit to him an "investment process". He liked it, we met and I agreed to join his firm (he says I was the best out of 50+ candidates). The founder wants to trade his own active strategies. But rather than get seed money for a hedge fund, he wants me and him to get smaller clients like under 500K in investable assets and build up. Once we build up then he sees us going after Whale's to get the real money for his trading stratagies. Now I'm here and I am realizing that I don't know if I should stick around. I get no pay, have no assets and neither does the founder. I can cold call and market really effectively and I actually enjoy it . And I'm realizing that maybe that talent should be used elsewhere. I'm not sure if this is the right firm to do it in. The firm is really for active trading strategies but he wants to boot strap through fully managing smaller portfolios but without offering a specific strategy or having a full range of products. Basically clients would stick their assets in Interactive Brokers or Scottrade and we would "manage" whatever piece they gave us. At first he said we'd have 8 people and I ended up the only one and frankly I think the guy has a great idea but implemented poorly. I know this sounds a bit confusing but I am confused. Any advice? RsgDo you work out of his mom's basement or gargage? This will impact on how I answer.
Thanks
No no. He really ponied up and got a big office space, a server. I mean we could fit 15 people in his office but after months of looking its only me. I think that he has a decent idea but it's just implemented incorrectly.
Thing is he supposed to be a trader but has no track so that hurts trying to get ultra highs and the only thing we offer for smaller investors (500k and below) is they put their portfolio in a Scottrade or Interactive account and we have control over it.
So it feels like we don't have a very good core competence that we offer.
I'm partly asking becuase after cold calling for weeks and networking I actually enjoy it and think I have some talent at it and I just think that my skills would be better used at a more traditional firm.
Well I left and I feel very relieved. I see now I should have done a lot more research and asked for a lot more verifiable background information on the founder. Other than the firm was registered and appeared to have an IAR license there was nothing else. No assets, track record, history. So my bad but we all learn .
Next time I gotta see their papers!