All you have to do is get an existing prop firm to buy the equipment/computers/etc. They also supply the capital just like usual to all their traders.
You then cover the office space costs with desk fees. Dallas office space is very cheap in comparison to California or New York office space. You could find some nice commercial property for real cheap and have it all covered with just 4 to 5 trading desks. The rest would be supplemental income.
You then charge the basic comission structure of that prop shop, working out a deal to get a small percentage from the prop firm off of commissions. The prop firm gives that up because you are managing the operation and are just providing them with additional revenue for something they couldn't have done without you.
You work closely with your traders to insure success. Provide daily updates, briefings, etc. If your traders are very good, you could make millions on the operation. Especially in the Dallas market.
At least, that's how I see it playing out in my head. The only question is how many trading desks do you need? In the Dallas market I would assume there would be a lot of demand so you'd maybe want 40 or 50 trading desks?
That just seems like a lot to manage though. Maybe start off with 15. 3 rows of 5 computers lined up. Would that be enough? You could run that operation out of a fairly small office or a decent sized one paying $2,000 roughly a month for commercial rent and $1,500 for internet/electric/phone. If each desk fee is $400 a month, that would be 15x400=$6,000. Which would more than cover operation expenses. You could probably get away with just 5 desks and be ok in a small office.
As an incentive, you could have AFTA-DFW guest speakers swing by the office to speak with your traders. Bring in a few guest speakers on ocassion from other operations in the area. make it a real extensive learning environment. Put up a trading library in the office with rare trading books and materials. Make the operation exclusive.
Then get some marketing done on it via the newspapers, career sites online, etc. It's easy to market jobs. You just post a few ads on Monster or on some industry sites and everyone will know about the new prop firm in Dallas.
You could even be a guest speaker at a AFTA meeting and talk about it. Or visit a few of the colleges in the area and talk about it. Two of the largest colleges in the U.S. are in Texas (Texas A&M and UT-Austin) with around 50,000 college students rotating through each school during any school year. You could contact the investment clubs there and have them arrange an event on trading. You could then come out and do a presentation in front of a large audience. A lot of those students at those schools are from Dallas.
You could also arrange a presentation by speaking with a few finance college professors in the Dallas area and present specifically in their senior classes. UT-Dallas has the top Chess program in the U.S. Lots of very intelligent analytical types at that school. SMU has a great group of students. Lots of very wealthy people in the Dallas SMU/TCU/Highland Park areas.
There are a number of firm in the area that I know of that have millionaires looking for more independence in their trading and more leverage. You'd be swamped with applications.
I would personally start a prop shop in Dallas if I had the capital to do so.
