TTU83: Starting a Quant Firm from Scratch ft. Natasha Reeve-Gray of Altis Partners – 1of2
Top Traders Unplugged
Niels Kaastrup-Larsen
4.8 • 670 Ratings
🗓️ 29 June 2015
⏱️ 68 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Our next guest left a well known trading firm in London to start a quantitative trading firm with 3 other partners. There’s a lot to be learned from her insights on starting a business, building a culture, and making it through the obstacles along the way. Listen in for our discussions on the startup phase and the current trading model.
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In This Episode, You’ll Learn:
- How Natasha and her founding partners all worked at the same firm before breaking out on their own.
- About her childhood growing up as an only child and what got her interested in finance.
- How she got her first job in finance.
- When she got hired by QCM.
- How she met her founding partners.
- How and why Natasha and her founding partners broke off from QCM.
- How she set up her new firm with her partners.
- How they each had a different area of the business that they focused on.
- The big obstacles of the early days and knowing which people to talk to.
- What the biggest learning curve was in terms of hiring the right people.
- Why they built a 24-month buffer for their business that would let them stay in business if things went down.
- Why the’ve gone to the cloud for their business.
- The details of their core team.
- What would require them to expand the team.
- How Natasha explains their track record to investors and potential client.
- About how they reacted to the period of 2011-2013.
- The details of their trading program and what their philosophy is behind the program.
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Resources & Links Mentioned in this Episode:
- Learn more about the film Trading Places, that inspired Natasha to pursue futures trading.
Follow Niels on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube or via the TTU website.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I think what you've got to start with is that you can have the best product in the world. |
| 0:07.0 | But if you don't build the business around it, that's also good to support that, you won't get anywhere. |
| 0:12.0 | And I think that was kind of the parts that we had accidentally on purpose in the sense that it was unusual to start with four founders. |
| 0:20.0 | Each of us had a different view on things. |
| 0:23.2 | So whilst I had sort of had a trading background, you know, again, I was much more, I really enjoyed sort of explaining what we did and really enjoy, actually I still enjoy trying understanding what we do. |
| 0:34.8 | You know, and it's a learning curve the whole time with, particularly with the research process. |
| 0:38.9 | Imagine sitting in a meeting, doing your level best to explain your product or service, |
| 0:44.7 | and not getting a positive feedback or feel from the other person. |
| 0:48.7 | What do you do? |
| 0:50.5 | Do you continue to model on, or do you face up to the situation by politely saying to the prospect |
| 0:57.3 | that this clearly is not working and it's not for them, and you suggest to end the meeting? |
| 1:03.3 | What reaction would you get from being authentic and true to your God feel? |
| 1:08.2 | Well, if you stick around, you'll find out just what happened when today's |
| 1:12.8 | guest did just that. Imagine spending an hour with the world's greatest traders. Imagine learning |
| 1:19.2 | from their experiences, their successes, and their failures. Imagine no more. Welcome to Top Traders |
| 1:26.1 | Unplugged, the place where you can learn from the best hedge fund |
| 1:29.3 | managers in the world, so you can take your manager due diligence or investment career to the next |
| 1:34.7 | level. Here's your host, veteran hedge fund manager, Niels Kastrop Larson. |
| 1:52.5 | Welcome to Top Traders on Plot, where my goal is to give you the clarity, confidence and courage you need to invest like or invest with one of the top traders in the world. |
| 1:58.8 | It is the stories that you never get to hear, set out as the |
| 2:02.3 | most honest and transparent account that I can make of what goes on inside the minds of some |
| 2:08.6 | of the best investors in the world. Today you're listening to episode 83. If this is the first |
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