The future: managing my own money, or other people's money?

I spent the last week having a good think about my future's direction. As a professional trader, I have two options:

 

1) Manage my own money

 

2) Manage other people's money

 

I've been reading CASHFLOW Quadrant from the Rich Dad Poor Dad series, and according to Robert Kiyosaki, most wealthy people obtain their wealth by utilising other people's money (OPM) and time (OTM).

 

If you're a professional trader / investor with a solid track record of profitability and low drawdown, investors will throw money at you. If you do decide to manage other people's money, your main source of income will come from fees. An advantage of managing OPM is scalability. There's not much difference in effort when investing $1m or $100m. Your investment or trading system(s) should be very similar in both cases. However, in the latter case, your income increases a hundred fold. Not bad at all. If you're a profitable trader using your own money, why not charge investors a fee to piggy-back on your success?

 

On the surface, this looks like an attractive proposition. But here are my reservations:

 

1) It becomes almost like a job. You're no longer answerable to yourself, but also to your investors. You'll be required to meet all sorts of regulations, expectations and KPIs. Most traders become so because of the freedom, and this sets you back in the corporate world, albeit you are your own boss.

 

2) Your psychological profile may mismatch with investors. Now, this can be partly remedied by being selective about those who invest with you. Most passive investors seek steady and reliable returns. In contrast, most traders want to strike it rich and retire as early as possible. Different goals. Many investors will balk at the prospect of losing 10-20% equity in a short-term drawdown, but traders know that such drawdowns are expected during long-term wealth creation.

 

There's prestige in finding your own hedge fund. Pyschologically, though, I don't think it's for me.