> Do you do this full time?

No, I try to avoid even doing it part time now. When I was younger, I was spending a lot of time learning and researching, from 2009 to 2011 it was perhaps around 20hrs to 40hrs per week.

> How long did it take until you got to make enough for a decent living?

My biggest trading flaw in hindsight is lack of patience and too high a tolerance for risk. My original investments from 2006 to 2011, holding just about any of that until today would have been _huge_ payouts.

In 2011 I learned about options and went all in on them. My life savings of $20k went towards it. It turned out well in the end, by shear super luck. Gambling that went from $60k, back down to $10k, where I then went all in on just AAPL and that position exploded with a 1200% profit - 10k turned into $120k in a week. I cashed that out & put a downpayment on property. That property did really well in terms of valuation (buying at a low price and then long term holding is just king).

I didn't have enough money to invest again until about 2021. That did not go well. I lost approx $160k over a couple weeks, the majority of that in one day.

IMO, what is the "right" way to do it? In essence, the goal is to put money in and forget about it for a good 10 years. This way you don't spend too much of your own time. You don't micromanage it, you don't sell too early, just forget about it.

Though, you want to take advantage of compounding. Initially, amounts are small. Use your income as a constant additive value. That initial and persistent boost of equity, say as little as +$100/ week, will add up very quickly and will initially grow your account the fastest. Eventually, the overall portfolio will be equal to a lot more than just a few paychecks. That is where you when you want things to sit & simply grow for a years. 5, 10 years is really not that long of a period of time. Don't try to get rich quick, try to get rich gradually instead.

Why do I recommend this over gambling? (I'll define gambling here as any type of trade that has an intended hold window of less than 3 months)

Two reasons: (A) Gambling will be deceitful, you have good odds of winning, but the odds of hitting max profit are less than the odds of hitting max loss, and even then on favorable trades - you need an unreal level of consistency to come out ahead. The losses can sometimes be more rare, but are outsized. Lots of folk do the fun math of what happens when they make 10% on every trade, but they don't take into account that every 5th or 10th trade might be a 90% loss.

(B) Your time. Gambling with a few hundred dollars might make you $1000 ~ $3000 without too much trouble. Though, for how much time/effort? To boot, you are more likely to lose everything. Which is to say, if you win - it'll be nice, but not life changing. If it is life changing, then you're gambling a lot (and either have rich parents, or really don't care if you lose a year or two of salary gambling). Regardless, my point is about the time commitment, it is stressful. In 2021, I could have burned $1 every 5 minutes for the entire year, and that still would have been better than what I wound up doing.

> Do you see any opportunities to start a self-funded business in this space, ideally related to software?

Certainly. Though, it's much better if you can figure out a way to be the person selling shovels compared to the people digging for gold.

> Also to be totally transparent - I'd love to continue the conversation over LinkedIn / a call and buy you lunch / a beer (somehow?). But I can't afford paying the rate you're probably entitled to ask.

Tempting :)
I'll likely hit you up on linked in. Look for that in the next coming days.