Good morning.
Well: ‘respect’ to you.
Look: it’s not my place to tell you how to do things. It’s also not my place to act as ‘Grand Daddy’ on these forums either (a role which I seem to inadvertently have taken upon myself and something that I know doesn’t endear me to most). It just ‘gets to me’ when I see new unsuspecting traders being blatantly ‘duped’ by ‘snake oil salesmen’, having unrealistic expectations (by my standards anyway which, I’ll be the first to admit, are probably lower than most), and being ‘fleeced’ by brokers. I don’t know why: but I ‘care’ for whatever reason. I’m not even sure that I should be involved here giving you my input as to what you should or should not be doing given that ACTUALLY we’re talking here about a ‘commercial product’ really. That’s actually something that BabyPips should think about adding in my opinion i.e. a forum for ‘Commercial Products’ where it’s made BLATANTLY clear that these are NOT ‘free’ products (not meaning yours in particular) in much the same way as some other sites have now done. They could even make some money from this.
The above being said: there is also a general misconception that ANYTHING and EVERYTHING posted here (and on other sites) MUST be free. For the most part: I tend to agree. But when somebody has spent months or years developing something that IS INDEED profitable and NOT ‘snake oil’: well then I don’t see any problem with it being sold at a reasonable asking price. I must say that I personally could ‘take a good lesson’ from this: “I CAN LIVE ONLY ON A COMPLIMENT FOR THREE MONTHS.” A wise man that George Bernard Shaw!!! LOL!!!
Anyway: my opinion is that the WAY you’re going about this is ‘decent’. This is a ‘far cry’ from ‘the usual’ i.e. ‘buy my EA’, ‘money back guarantee’, ‘guaranteed profits’, and every other conceivable promise being made. Inevitably: once such EA is sold you’ll never get your money back if it’s not profitable (that’s if you’re lucky enough to be able to find the company or individual that sold it to you in first place). You’re affording the trader the opportunity to trade with your EAs, see if they’re profitable, see if it suits them and their personal trading style, and, well, if they’re making consistent profits from them, then why should you NOT be compensated. This also tells me that at very LEAST YOU have faith in your OWN product. You’re NOT selling a ‘beautifully packaged box’ with ‘cherry picked’ trades and years worth of useless (and in all probability ‘manipulated’) historical, and always profitable, data.
Also: given that (so far as I can tell) you’re trading very short time frames one quarter is a long enough period to test these EAs. If they were designed for the daily or weekly or monthly time frames then I’d say you’d have to extend the trial period by months or years!!!
And also: ‘proving’ the profitability of your EAs is also not your sole responsibility. So far as I can tell they’re more ‘indicators’ than EAs. So any trader that’s interested in trading with them (and eventually buying them) also has the responsibility of back testing them for themselves i.e. going back in time and ‘stepping through’ the charts and literally ‘paper trading’ them. Any trader that just ‘takes your word’ that they’re profitable, pays you for them, and then ‘cries’ afterwards that they were a waste of money, really only has themselves to blame.
So in summary: as ‘suspect’ as this thread appeared to be when starting out it THUS far appears to be one of the very few that MAY JUST BE ‘on the level’. I hope I’m not going to live to regret that statement!!! LOL!!!
Personally: I don’t believe in EAs. But that’s just me. I don’t like things ‘happening’ that I have no control over. And besides: what would I do all day??? It’s bad enough when the markets are ‘dead in the water’ (well MY markets anyway). Imagine if I just had to sit back and watch my PCs ‘do their thing’ without touching the mouse!!! I’d go insane!!! LOL!!!
One last thing and assuming that everything is INDEED ‘on the level’: also don’t go ‘deserting’ your client base once they’ve paid. Even if you have to charge a nominal support fee per annum after the initial sale. You never know: over time one or two traders may come up with an idea to improve the performance of your product (something which may not have occurred to you as yet). You know: one of those ‘light bulb moments’. Do this ‘right’: and you could have a very happy bunch of clients and be making some consistent money while at the same time allowing others to be profitable. That’s a ‘win win’ situation and such situations don’t present themselves too often!!!
In closing (and only to ‘cover my own ar*e’): I’ve not downloaded or installed or tested these EAs. I don’t know anything about them, how they work, or if they’re profitable or not. I’m not recommending them nor endorsing them. But I do admire the way that the ‘business aspect’ is being ‘handled’.
So all I can say is that I HOPE they’re profitable and I HOPE that YOU do well out of them and more importantly (no offence) that the people that test them (and eventually buy them) are just as profitable if not more so.
Right: now if I can just figure out a way to ‘extort’ $1 000 from each member of my forums … LOL!!!
Regards,
Dale.