I'm an experienced coder (I began as a web dev, then went to software architecture. I also worked as a security consultant).
Since about a year, I got increasingly interested in machine learning.
After a dozen of books on the topic, hours on Coursera, I achieved, I believe a pretty decent level.
Further from absolute mastery that I'd like though. My objective would be to master the field enough to do some research (on evolutionary algorithm, that's kind of my actual life goal)
To give you a rough idea of Where I'm at, I'm able to read research papers and more often I would be able to implement what they talk about from scratch. (Which would require a sick level if Google was not a thing, yet still not the simplest thing on earth with it)
Now, here's a question:
I want to spend a whole year learning like crazy. Learn, and apply all acquired knowledge to one and only one project: Algorithmic trading. What could that give ?
The answer to that question is probably pretty straightforward, and goes along the lines of:
"Dude, I don't even know you, what fuck should I give ? You moron."
That's rude, character I just invented for the sake of my argument, but totally fair.
Now, what if I told you, you get to enjoy the fruits of my work ?
People crowdfunding their studies is apparently a thing. To be honest, I'm not sure I would be kind enough to help a stranger in that way without any counterpart.
So here's a counterpart: I try to code the best trading bot ever created, and you can use it.
(Which doesn't tell you much, this is probably the case for anyone coding a bot. I mean, no one is trying hard to be the third best.)
That, I assume, raise some questions. Here are the ones that I would have wanted to ask, should I've been you reading those lines:
Will you succeed ?:
It depends on the goal.
I've we're talking about the best bot ever... That's... quite unlikely.
If the goal is to make every contributor much more money that they put in. I'm actually very confident that will be the case (not without reason, more on that latter), if we're talking about a large amount of money, that's a real possibility, but that's my opinion. Which leads me to the next question:
Why should you trust you ?
That's a really good question, Here's a two parts answer:
1) You shouldn't
Let's be real, from your point of view, I'm just a dude on the internet.
"Just a dude on the internet" is a category of people among the least trustable.
When it comes to trust, "just a dude on the internet" ties with "Convicted pedophile applying for a babysitter position".
But there is even worse: "Just a dude on the internet who wants to make you rich".
2) On the other hand
I asked myself what would be susceptible to raise my trust at your place, and here's what I come up with:
- The funding will be monthly (Patreon type of thing), which is probably obvious yet it feels better making this explicit
- We'll have a mean (either slack or discord) to interact directly, and I intent to give frequent updates
- A web page showing real time results of the trainings will be online 24/7
- I will, one way or another, make my identity verifiable. So you're sure I'm not from a far country you can't even pronounce (Well, unless you can't pronounce "France")
- The number of seat will be limited. Which is not actually about honesty, at this point, I absolutely have no idea if that thing could work at all. But in the unlikely case this is a huge success and a lot of people are willing to contribute. A large amount of monthly cash will look like an unbearable pressure to me. Consequently the upper limit will be about what I need to my exact current lifestyle (which consists in paying my rent and buying the food I want)
I won't take a dime before those conditions are met
Is this a get rich quick thing ?
I wouldn't need you if it was. In fact, I want to take my time to implement everything cleanly, with tests, trades reports, a decent UI.
At this point, there is a detail that seem of importance. I told you I was confident for reasons: here why: the bot is very advanced already. I even already made some profit. I also told you I wanted to do research (point on which I insist, this is pretty much the goal of all of this). Well, some of the methods used are implemented from scratch and are my own creation.
It goes from super accurate to weirdly unpredictable. The whole code is drafty and needs to be cleaned, some part rewritten, I need to read a lot of research papers and math books. It "kind of" works, but I need to settle down, and be able to focus on writing great code without the pressure of having to make money immediately. And that's where I could use your help
The timeline would go as such: IF there is enough people to support the project, I will need a week or two to handle the requirement I talked about.
Then it would start, and the first three months would be the more boring (for you, for me that would be intense
). Expect at the end of this period, a first usable version, three more months until it's decent, then six months to works my way through awesomeness. That's the plan anyway.
Three bits of information to go:
How much would it cost to be a contributor ?: I'm not sure yet, somewhere between 30 and 50 USD.
It's over here: https://forms.gle/PMUmoHyqi6yxAunA6 you just have to give me your email. And if you are not sure, or very sure, or absolutely whatever, there is a field for comments.
If ever that have any success, number of seat will be very limited. First-come-first-served