Shouting in High-Frequency

Having spent a couple of weeks in our office (which happens to be in the basement of my house) I am starting to realise that there are a few conveniences I just didn’t appreciate enough in my investment banking days.

Case in point: the other day we decided that we needed a flip-over chart for our brain-storming sessions. Back in the day, I would simply call the corporate help-line and someone would deliver it to my desk within half an hour. Ok, not a big deal I hear you say (and you’re right). But now being an entrepreneur, the process involved getting into my car, driving to Staples to pick one up, and then assembling it when I got back. The problem: it takes time (about 2 hrs to be exact)! And time, as we all know, is money. But even worse than that, it takes focus.

One thing I am really starting to appreciate about running my own business — more so than I had expected — is cost awareness. Fine, you learn about the impact of costs in business schools and such, but let’s be honest: when working for a big corporation the only time you really care about cost is when your company is slashing them and you feel the Big Fear. For the budding entrepreneur however, every pen, flip-chart, stapler or computer screen means making an important decision — because every item you pay for has a direct impact on your chances of succeeding.

We like airplanes, and we use the term ‘runway’ a lot as an analogy for our chances of making it. Right now, we know exactly how long our runway is, and we have a pretty good idea that it’s sufficient to bring us up to speed and give us take-off — but only just. That means we need to stay sharp and make sure we don’t make poor decisions that shortens the runway and leaves us heading into the gravel at full throttle.

For traders it’s the same story. All fixed and transaction costs have a direct impact on trading performance. Most trading models out there look profitable before you factor in cost. And most do not after you do. I am sure there are hoards of great models out there that retail traders have worked on but ended up scrapping because the cost of setting them up and/or running them rendered them unprofitable.

The sole aim of KolibriFX is to enable traders to build, test and run the models they need, without paying programmers or licencing-fees to get going. In the trading world, getting this extra runway means freeing up your capital to boost or diversify your portfolio.

And that’s the only way to fly.

—Einar