New Venture

Hi guys,

I am new on this forum and I love it I got interested in trading long time ago so I decided to take a MSc in Mathematical Modeling and Computation with Financial Engineering as study line. So I am a young trader but also very entrepreneurial but orientated on social entrepreneurship more and I also like the academic environment.

When I started to get interested in trading it was a bit hard to find good courses which are not high priced or a scam to be a prop trader investing lot of money and from where to get hands on experience. In universities you hear about financial markets but you don't really trade, so far I was not able to find that in a regular university course. (I don't want to blame all providers there are some which are legit and good but high priced for students especially)

Here I am now writing my thoughts and asking for strong advices from the amazing traders that write in this forum.

I want to start a new small venture. Trading Course. YES I KNOW there are so many trading courses in this world, paid or free material on the internet. VERY TRUE (please do not tell me this again, instead please help out with a good thoughts and an innovative idea)
My idea is to create some interactive courses and deliver them online in a very nice online university style, for free and maybe charge a small amount to issue the completion diploma once they finish the course if they want that nice certificate. (no certified diploma just a diploma of attendee/completion). Target should be students that are studying finance at university and would like to learn about trading and do some demo trading and trades analyzed by a pro trader.

The reasons why I am writing all this because I would like to get supporters and people that would like to get involved. I don't want to make something like a scam shop and full people around to pay for high priced courses, all I want is to deliver something nice and to cover the costs, and deliver some value for students or people who want to learn WITHOUT falling for one of the so many scams out there on the internet that promise you'll be a rockstar trader by opening a mini account with 500$. I want the students to see the real side of trading, disciplin, risk management etc.

Please once again be nice with advices if you can and not negative thoughts like there are many courses or anything else as I will do it anyway. I want to work on this project and it's a hobby/passion. Instead please focus on how this should be best and most realistic course from which the students will profit 100% by spending time on learning the course modules.

I am sure you are more experienced traders that I am and I am sure you could come up with some very valuable ideas, suggestions and guidance.

Really looking forward to read the brilliant replies.

Thank you!

With Friendship,
Vlad Danciu

What do you think about this ?

Diploma in Financial Trading

Syllabus

Introduction to Trading

Psychology/Trading Plan

Risk Management

Product Analysis

Macro Fundamentals

Technical Analysis 1

Technical Analysis 2

Performance Analysis

Advanced Trading Strategies

no feedback ?

Interesting idea Vlad. There is certainly a lot of money to be made in courses/education for traders. In fact, it's probably easier to make money that way than trading itself! First of all, I think you have to forget the diploma/certificate idea. You are not a registered educational institution so there are probably laws about issuing such diplomas. Also, the only outcome people will want is that they will then be able to trade profitably, they won't care about a certificate. So I'd either charge for enrolling at the online university or charge for individual lessons.

Another thing you have to think about is - how are you going to get these pro traders to write these courses and help the 'students' out? Most traders that know their stuff can make considerable amounts of money, so why would they want to be writing lessons/courses and giving their trade secrets away? How would you make it worth their while? Most people that trade do not teach and vice versa. So getting the quality content will be the difficult part, then convincing the students that it is quality content. You could always get rubbish content and flog it for silly money. Plenty of people making a living doing that!

Anyway, good luck with it!

Sam.

First Reply so I am excited :clap:
Thank you Sam for your time!

Yes you've touched some very important points.

However I think my idea was more orientated for students that want to have a career in investment banking and they could leverage this course, a plus to their resume by showing that they really learned something more than just finance course at university and got some trading experience.
Regarding the diploma as I mentioned it should be only a paper that you did this course and you finished an exam, like theory and some trading practice. Not certification so you do not get certified in any way, you just get something that you finished this course, so you got some knowledge. Do you think that for this you need to be regulated by FSA ? diploma of course completion / attendance no certification. of course we can say it's a bit useless as the knowledge count's but I was just thinking it would be a nice way to say congratulations to the students that finish the course.:smart:

Regarding the traders yes that is also right, but I was thinking maybe the institutional traders from banks are more open to hold seminars (in this case something online) as they go sometimes to financial orientated universities and speak about career opportunities in their banks.

I am not in for a lot of money and rubbish product, in fact I am happy to create some value and just cover costs of doing it. I want to do it more for social reasons

Creating something based on good principles both moral and knowledge, its the reasond why I wrote here to get more impressions from pro traders and people that can spot a rubbish education for a good one.

Thanks again for your time and looking forward to hear more of your thoughts.

I forgot to ask... you mentioned "So I'd either charge for enrolling at the online university or charge for individual lessons."
I was thinking that the course should have 10 modules like in the syllabus in the post above.
What would you charge for such a course ?

In my mind I had a very low price that will cover costs of running everything BUT as you also say you need to convince students that it's a good course and sometimes people consider the low priced products as being low quality as well.

VladDanciu said:

First Reply so I am excited :clap:
Thank you Sam for your time!

Yes you've touched some very important points.

However I think my idea was more orientated for students that want to have a career in investment banking and they could leverage this course, a plus to their resume by showing that they really learned something more than just finance course at university and got some trading experience.
Regarding the diploma as I mentioned it should be only a paper that you did this course and you finished an exam, like theory and some trading practice. Not certification so you do not get certified in any way, you just get something that you finished this course, so you got some knowledge. Do you think that for this you need to be regulated by FSA ? diploma of course completion / attendance no certification. of course we can say it's a bit useless as the knowledge count's but I was just thinking it would be a nice way to say congratulations to the students that finish the course.:smart:

Regarding the traders yes that is also right, but I was thinking maybe the institutional traders from banks are more open to hold seminars (in this case something online) as they go sometimes to financial orientated universities and speak about career opportunities in their banks.

I am not in for a lot of money and rubbish product, in fact I am happy to create some value and just cover costs of doing it. I want to do it more for social reasons

Creating something based on good principles both moral and knowledge, its the reasond why I wrote here to get more impressions from pro traders and people that can spot a rubbish education for a good one.

Thanks again for your time and looking forward to hear more of your thoughts.

Click to expand...

Well if I was you I would probably get some legal advice on the whole certificate thing regarding what you can and can't call the qualification, but yes I see where you are coming from. If the idea took off it would be nice for people to be able to say they studied with the 'online university'. But I think it would be a long time before investment banks and such recognised the certificates. I'm not sure about FSA, I doubt it because you are not investing/trading peoples funds, you would just be charging for a service. There is something similar: School of Pipsology I don't think they are/need to register. Would your site be like baby pips?

VladDanciu said:

I forgot to ask... you mentioned "So I'd either charge for enrolling at the online university or charge for individual lessons."
I was thinking that the course should have 10 modules like in the syllabus in the post above.
What would you charge for such a course ?

In my mind I had a very low price that will cover costs of running everything BUT as you also say you need to convince students that it's a good course and sometimes people consider the low priced products as being low quality as well.

Click to expand...

It's impossible to say really without seeing the quality and amount of material. I'd probably look at creating content to sell for around about the £100 mark. You don't want it to appear like cheap rubbish and on the other hand people don't want to risk thousands on something they cannot see. The key is going to be getting quality content and convincing the customers/students that it is quality content.

Sam.

A lot of people pay large fees to do MSc's and qualifications because they are recognised as either a good university, or as traditionally useful in certain careers. I think you'll find it hard for yours to be recognised. Looking at your list, for fundamentals, there are economics courses at better places than you can offer. Technical analysis too. Performance analysis is just statistics. So there's not a lot there that isnt' already offered elsewhere at more recognised institutions.

So if I were you I'd forget about the diploma/certificate idea. Nobody will want it. Also think about what your syllabus would have that most introductory trading books wouldn't have.

Hi Guys,

I get your point with the diploma, so I will kind of stop focusing on that and that's gonna be just something they will get when they finish like a thank you but instead what they get out of it should be more important, so the marketing program should emphasize that and not the diploma.

Price range £100 I think would be fair. I had in mind like 197$ if it should be paid (in order to cover expenses if I can't come up with a better idea) so not to cheap to be considered rubbish but not too high either.

Babypips nice website I like babypips but to me it's just text nothing interactive nothing people are looking for this days, my impression. Universities hmm yes they definitely offer good education in economics and analysis and other theoretical things, BUT my filling all the programs and universities that I visited, none of them had a course of trading right? I mean where you go to the class and you do hands on practice, you get on demo platform and trade and you have someone to look over your shoulder. So I think this is more the direction I would like this to go. What do you think ? so not only the theory (book style)

As Shakone said I should maybe focus more on what or how it is different from other theoretical trading courses. And I think my answer is this, online e-learning, very interactive with seminars and instructor analyzing your trades and telling you what is wrong and what is not and what can be done better; on top of that special guest close to the end of the course that will tell them more about experience as a trader (I have in mind more institutional traders from banks, people that I have access to and would be interested to do this), while motivating them in the same time.

Do you guys think this would be a good element that will differentiate the course from other courses ? or from regular good university courses ? Is it enough? (think at it as being the connection between theory and practice, a hands on education where you do things instead of reading, but of course it will also provide you the good theory in case you don't have it)

Thanks for helping me by sharing your thoughts and providing good feedback. You really made me thinking more as what they get out of it, experience, results.