The Thirty Questions.
An operator's self-audit.
We close with a self-audit. Thirty questions we'd ask in a scoping conversation with a prop firm operator. There is no scoring. No right or wrong number. If you can answer all thirty with confidence, your risk operation is in the top decile of retail prop firms we've seen. If you can answer fewer than fifteen, that's where we'd start the conversation.
On detection
Does your detection run continuously, or on a schedule? How quickly does a pattern observed today become a flag in your system? Can you identify a coordinated group of accounts across your funded book? Can you distinguish accidental correlation from organized rings? Do you have any cross-account analysis at all? Could you find a self-hedger on your platform today if one existed? How do you know one doesn't?
On payout review
Does every payout decision resolve cleanly to a specific outcome, or do some decisions live in an ambiguous queue? Can you produce the evidence behind any payout decision from the last ninety days in under a minute? Do your decisions reference specific policy clauses? Do they explain the reasoning? Are they written to survive a public review?
On operations
What percentage of your risk team's time is analysis, and what percentage is coordination? How long does it take a new analyst to become productive? If your most experienced risk person resigned tomorrow, what percentage of your operational knowledge would walk out with them? How many of your processes exist only in one person's head?
On data
Does your marketing team have access to trading data? Can you segment communications by trader performance? Do you know, today, which of your funded traders are most likely to churn in the next thirty days? What's your median payout approval time? Do you have any visibility into how that number is trending?
On strategy
What's your biggest operational leak right now? Who owns it? When was the last time you audited your risk operation from first principles? If the firm doubled in size next year, what would break first? And the question most worth sitting with: what are you not looking at because no one has asked the question yet?
If these stories reminded you of shapes in your own book, we'd like to talk. Audit slots are limited to ten firms per quarter. When they fill, the offer pauses until next quarter.