Not so clearcut, a trader might not be keen on risking too much of his personal savings and big money is into managing large opm - the problem obviously is the more you made on your own account the more opm you will need to feel it's interesting. If OP has a couple of years more with such a run I doubt he will be interested with friends and family investors.
You have to define 'rich'. If you want to be worth $1 million, sure you can do it yourself. Can still take a lifetime to do...but a million is not rich tbh, but is probably more than enough for most people. However making something like $30 million, which i think is a good definition of (seriously) rich, you will almost certainly need OPM. Doing it yourself with your own money could take a very long time and that's if you manage to do it at all!
I used to think the same way. In reality, if your method is scalable, you want to have a few good years which would make you properly wealthy, mid 8 figures and up. Nothing lasts forever and while you could possibly make the same amount on your own, it would take over a decade if that market doesn't change.
I guess you're all right, I suppose...but for me, personally, I would take much greater pride in myself...if I did it on my own. If I grew my personal small account to a relatively large one. ...as opposed to being a fund manager and collecting management fee's regardless of performance. (i hate those kind of guys) ...Anybody could make a good living collecting management and performance fee's of 2%/20% on a Huge fund of other people's money! ...you just basically set it and forget it...and then lie on the beach or your swanky penthouse. Courtesy of gambling with other people's money . Where's the honor and pride and Skill in that...
Well, they first had to make the fund big, it's not as easy as it seems. Many still rely on performance fees since most are not managing billions. Consider that there are many fees associated with HF. The best way for a trader is to take money from a HF, so that you participate in the reward but have no constant expenses (lawyers etc). The question then becomes, what does the fund want in return. After some years of trading with only your own modest resources, you become frustrated since the progress is slow and no matter how well you think you've figured everything out - there are always problems to overcome. OP's record is very short and making any assumptions about the future on half a year worth of trades is not the best idea.
Was gonna post something similar, that you indeed need to raise money which is not easy, 2% of say $10m is only $200k, out of which you need to pay for various pro (e.g. i was quoted £1500 a month for legal services!) and administrative fees and also you need to pay a salary to yourself!