When Ken, Steve, Lou and I created our first trading firm (in 2000), our only thought was to “Get in on this trading thing” and to thereby make ourselves a bit of cash; nothing more. Indeed, our first company was called NPI Traders, as in “No Pun Intended;” proof positive that we were a bit stunned by our temerity.

Flash forward a brace of decades and we’re still at it; although as SquidEyes this go-round, a retail trading company with its first commercial product (SquidFolio).

Time will tell if this latest venture pans out, but the early indications are rather pleasing.

As to the absurd idea that “we four” might’ve one-day turned out to be the stewards of such a cutting-edge trading firm, the smart money would’ve declaimed a resounding “NO!” I mean, not a one of us had the least trading experience when we plunged in head-first. Moreover, Lou was only one with an MBA, whereas the rest of us were programmers; something, I should add, that we never went to school for. Indeed, Ken and Steve started out in dentistry, whereas I went to SUNY Purchase for theatrical lighting design (even though I’d been coding since I was twelve; in 1972!)

In retrospect, we were the perfect sort of enthusiasts to launch a cutting-edge trading company, even if it did take the better part of a decade for this latest-iteration to gel, what with three of the partners pursuing conventional careers, up until recently:

• Louis Berman: CTO at EPAM; a top-notch 50,000+ employee software engineering firm
• Lou Gucciardo: thought leader and top technical seller at Microsoft, 13 years running
• Steve Weiss: algo expert, process / methodology consultant to much of the Fortune 500

As to Ken, he was CEO of an app-dev consultancy (BrainTree) up until he made the shift to trading in 2000; trading, that, is when he wasn’t coding custom bots and indicators and strategies.

Looking forward, we intend to build the company into a profitable growing concern, of course, but much of our motivation is around helping others . I don’t mean in a feed-the-world save-the-whales sort of sense, but more in a “Let’s do something to give our friends and family a leg up.”

The SquidEyes partners are fairly affluent but we have lot of have friends who are anything but. If things pan out as we intend then we’ll be in a position to not only allow a number of those folks to trade for free, but in many cases, to directly fund their trading, too. Of course, most of our traders will not have the benefit of such largess (sorry!), but our going assumption is that the venture will be profitable for most of our subscribers. (NO GUARANTEES, BTW; trading forex portfolios like SquidFolio can certainly lead to significant loss!) but as in all things trading, hope springs eternal.

Anyway, the point to it all, the reason I offered up this little history is to offer up some insight into our history and motivations; to give you some sense as to what we’re about.

Louis S. Berman, Drexel Hill, PA