How I am approching scaling my account to the next level💰 Introduction
I have been actively investing for over seven years. When I started in 2017, I had no idea what I was doing. My first trade was a short/mid-term win on an altcoin skyrocketing in a straight line—it felt unbelievable. But the truth was, I was completely clueless.
Still, I was hooked. I started reading everything I could and expanded my focus to stocks and Forex. Six months later, I had developed some ideas about Forex, though I was still lost when it came to stocks. I funded a Forex account with €8,000 to test my skills, using a simple 1:1 risk-to-reward 0.5% per trade system. A few months later, I was up about 15% - a solid start.
From there, my goal was clear: design a great strategy first, then scale it. But things didn’t go as planned.
I suffered a serious injury, which got progressively worse, making it impossible to hold a regular job. I spent everything I had on rent and medical bills. To make matters worse, I stubbornly clung to a terrible strategy for years - even after developing better ones. I ignored huge unrealized gains, constantly chasing the “holy grail” of investing. Ironically, today, I trade every single strategy (or a modified version to add to winners) I’ve ever designed since 2019 - except the one I stubbornly stuck with for years.
Through all this, I learned a crucial lesson:
💡 A strategy should work from day one. You backtest it to verify, then refine it, but you don’t trade it live until it’s ready.
Now, after years of experience, mistakes, and lessons learned, I have several proven strategies and a fresh perspective. The next step? Scaling up aggressively.
Of course, I can’t cover everything in one article, a full book wouldn’t even be enough. Some aspects of growing an account, like tax implications, aren’t discussed here.
But my goal is simple: to inspire investors to think creatively about scalability and strategy development. The process of building an investment strategy - including a scaling plan - is all about creativity.
💰 The Challenge of Scaling: Why Gains Lag Behind Losses
Your gains will always lag behind your losses - this is a fundamental reality in investing. If you scale too fast, your winners from months ago may not be enough to cover your new losses, even if you're performing well overall.
I am not talking about drawdowns, those makes things even worse. I am talking about how looking for asymmetric returns means the time it takes will be asymmetrical too. For mid-term strategies, traders typically risk 1 unit to gain 5, 10, or even 15. However, the time required for returns grows exponentially as reward targets increase. If you're aiming for 10x or more, your losing trades might last only 2–3 days, but your winners could take six months or longer to materialize.
I experienced this firsthand in 2024. I started the year strong, accelerating my risk after solid returns from trading the Yen. Then I hit the gas again, but things turned bad - primarily because I was experimenting with a new strategy alongside my proven ones. In November, I realized a 15x profit on gold, which could have significantly changed my situation. However, I had entered the position back in February, before I began scaling, so the gains didn’t have the impact I needed at the time.
💰 Scaling Only Works for the Few Who Are Ready
Most traders either stagnate or lose, and even the best often learn the hard way early on. You’ve probably heard the common statistic: only 10% of FX investors win, and only 10% of stock investors beat the market. But even within that elite group, only a third outperform significantly enough to consider trading as a full-time career rather than just a supplement for retirement.
From the data I've seen, only about 3% of investors should even consider aggressive scaling. Attempting to scale without a proven track record is a recipe for disaster. Even the most famous market wizards often had to learn the hard way early on.
A good analogy is chess - not everyone is a young prodigy, and even for those who are, it often takes 7–8 years to reach master level. The same applies to investing: skill and experience take time to develop, and rushing the process can lead to avoidable mistakes.
💰 No shortcut but there are ways to increase scalability
A path one might follow is the investment fund. However these are very restrictive, George Soros once said to make money you had to take risk. No matter how good you are you are still subject to the same laws and I know no one that has 100% win rate. If your max drawdown is 5% how much can you realistically risk per operation? Perhaps 0.25% So your 10X winner will be 2.5%. We know the returns, drawdowns and Sharpe ratios of the biggest (and supposedly best) funds, I never heard of a fund with a tiny max drawdown and huge returns except Medallion fund you got me.
The problem I personally have, or shall I say had, is that I can sometimes go 6-12 months without a winner, or with just 1-2. It is spread very non-homogeneously. In the last 3 months I have (finally!) designed a short term strategy that will smooth the curve, I risk 1 to make 5 and have opportunities in all market conditions. I was not even trying to, I just randomly felt creative and went "Eureka".
I am currently running my proven strategies on my main accounts, and the new one on a smaller account - of course I keep winning on these small amounts. This short term strategy might not be my best one, although it might be the second best, however it was exactly what I needed to help smooth the drawdowns and more boring market conditions.
💰 Balancing Creativity and Risk in Scaling Strategies
I believe designing a successful scaling strategy requires a combination of creativity and pessimism. From my experience, it's essential to explore different ways to scale while always keeping the worst-case scenario in mind.
To illustrate this, let’s consider an example - not necessarily the exact approach I will take, but a concept that reflects my thinking. Suppose I allocate €25,000 to a brokerage account and divide it into 25 "tokens" of €1,000 each. Every time the account grows, I would redistribute the balance into 25 equal parts, each representing 4% of the total.
This setup ensures that I always have capital available for new opportunities. Even if I lose 10 times in a row and have 5 tokens tied up in winning trades (or disappointing breakevens), I would still have 10 tokens left to reinvest. Based on my calculations, 25 is the minimum number required for this method to work efficiently. That said, 4% risk per trade is significantly higher than what I have ever risked, and I may adjust it downward.
💰 Risk Management and Personal Goals
If someone were able to triple a €25,000 account each year, they could theoretically reach €2 million in just four years. However, such exponential growth is rare and unsustainable over the long term. Jesse Livermore achieved extraordinary gains - but ultimately lost everything and took his own life. This is a stark reminder that extreme financial risk can have devastating consequences.
I would never attempt this kind of aggressive scaling with essential funds - certainly not with rent money, without a financial cushion, with large amounts, or without a clear Plan B.
My personal objectives:
If investing my own money: My goal is to build a €2M–€3M account while continuing my regular job - possibly reducing to part-time work.
If managing investor funds: I would aim to start with €10M AUM, with at least €500K of my own capital in the fund. My ultimate target is to grow AUM to €100M.
💰 The Crypto Factor : A Different Beast
The extreme volatility combined with long term aspect of crypto makes for a very different experience. In the past it has shown incredible returns, I know this first hand my brother started mining Ethereum I think in 2019 when the price was below $150 I guess and then he has been buying cryptos on the way up, in euros I might add, with the crypto/euro charts looking much better than the USD ones.
But there is no reason why it cannot all go to zero, or crash 95% and remain here for years. And even if the whole crypto market does not crash, several of them die each year. I am not a perma bear I do not wish my younger brother to lose everything, this is all he has, he got no diploma not interesting career.
For crypto to fit in a structured investment strategy I personally would only put small amounts. So it sort of follows the idea of a separate account with huge risk. An amount that one can afford to lose.
💰 Final words
I believe I have the experience, the rigor and the strategies to increase my risk and invest more aggressively. In a near future - maybe starting 2026 - I want to really grow my account.
My scaling will be gradual, I won't jump from an amount to 3 times that in 3 months, I will manage my risk strategically; And before even starting the battle I will have clearly defined objectives.
