I have developed a quasi-automated no-touch system that gives me roughly a 50% return per year. Meaningful drawdowns are infrequent, and always hedged. The system is fully backtested over a 5 year period. I have about $500K of my own money which is actually enough capital start trading. My problem is the other costs associated with setting up the system and business. I figure that it will take about $200K per year to run the business. This means I quit my current job (software engineer) and dedicate all of my time to starting up the business. I pay myself a $100K salary per year, and the other $100K goes to operating costs like office space, computer systems, legal, accounting, and most important of all.....marketing and sales!! This is my biggest problem. I do not want to sweat it out for 5 years in some crummy office in some crummy town. So the main question would be how does one attract investors to such a business? Initially, I just really need normal business loans to pay for the operating costs. Of course the next or concurrent steps are convincing other people let me manage their money. At the moment I have no network to draw on, as I am in the software engineering business, not in money management or trading comercially. Most of the private equity news letters seem to focus on businesses that make a physical product or provide a service. As far as starting a hedge fund, this appears even more daunting, as the capital requirements are usually above $5M. Any advice on how to get this seed capital for operating costs and a feasible strategy for getting people to let me manage their money?
