That all sounds nice *assuming* everyone trusts each other. You haven't solved the trust problem yet.

That's a hard problem, indeed. Will think more in depth about it when and if I'll have to (meaning I'll actually find some wannabe associates who qualify for the "lighter" requirements), also I'll wanna hear their input into this issue.

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The amount that I quoted ($1000 / month) also has some thought behind it, first being that I can afford it And if I have them then they shouldn't be a problem to other guys living in EU or US (leave aside this: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/18/few-ame ... gency.html ). I also quoted a 3 years investment, so there's a stop loss on the money spent. Overall, that would be $36000 on my side, I'll neither bankrupt by losing them nor get rich if I keep saving them. For me it makes sense to try to invest them into something of mugh higher potential, and given my experience, that's options trading. 

That's ca a two year salary of a software dev in Romania and 4.5 of an average salary in Bucharest, isn't it?

Average pre-tax monthly salary in Romania: $1000. Taxes are about 40% so take home is about $600. 
Average pre-tax yearly salary for a software dev in Romania, according to PayScale: about $26000 / year. For a junior with 2-3 years of experience, to my knowledge, it's more like the sum I quoted ($36000). But those $36000 if I'd be paying them, would be saved from a pre-tax amount of $60000. And if I'd be paying a guy here *on salary* (there are other methods too), they'd be taxed again, so the take-home amount would be around $20000, the state would effectively engulf 2 / 3rds of the original amount.

But for the business I described here and at this stage, I've no use for a code monkey. And besides the few finance/capital market companies here who only employ, ahem, programmers, in 10 years of looking sporadically at local job boards, I've never, I repeat: NEVER saw a quant job. For all I know I may be the only quant in the country, certainly the only options-specialized quant, and that only by accident. The domain just doesn't exist here.

Count Dracula's family office switched to Murex two years ago.

Average pre-tax monthly salary in Romania: $1000. Taxes are about 40% so take home is about $600. 
Average pre-tax yearly salary for a software dev in Romania, according to PayScale: about $26000 / year. For a junior with 2-3 years of experience, to my knowledge, it's more like the sum I quoted ($36000). But those $36000 if I'd be paying them, would be saved from a pre-tax amount of $60000. And if I'd be paying a guy here *on salary* (there are other methods too), they'd be taxed again, so the take-home amount would be around $20000, the state would effectively engulf 2 / 3rds of the original amount.

But for the business I described here and at this stage, I've no use for a code monkey. And besides the few finance/capital market companies here who only employ, ahem, programmers, in 10 years of looking sporadically at local job boards, I've never, I repeat: NEVER saw a quant job. For all I know I may be the only quant in the country, certainly the only options-specialized quant, and that only by accident. The domain just doesn't exist here.

I like some parts of your idea. Especially the working together part. I believe there are easier ways to do this though, e.g. hire university students/graduates or any people with serious technical/analytical credentials who can spare some time (let's say 20 hours per week, but more is fine too) without getting employment status with fixed salary. Maybe to get experience/internship and obviously if the team makes money they get a cut of the profits and eventually can become partner. I can set this up with say, 35-50k upfront investment in a low-cost town such as Bucharest or even better Cluj maybe with relations to a backer with "unlimited" intraday capital with API to ~zero transactions costs. No options though. Obviously you will have to mentor the team members in the beginning as they are not experienced quants.

I've also been thinking on hiring students / recent graduates. One problem is that by my own, I'd only be having money to pay them for part time work. But the main challenge is finding people who are not doing this for the money in their hand now but for the end goal: money they're getting when and if they beat the market. The fact that in order to do that they also need significant competence / analytical credentials adds further strain to the already almost impossible challenge of finding them.

I live in Cluj (scoring for "even better", right? ). Currently do some teaching at the Babeș-Bolyai University as part of the math PhD I'm doing here and probably the most profitable result I could extract from this situation is recruiting one or a few students for quant research.

And yes, I could mentor them into what I know. But after putting more than 10 years of effort into this field, I don't really have an expiration date like startups / businesses do. I'll continue to invest time and work as long as it takes until I'm breaking through and become profitable. If I involve others, apart from chances of them being just the regular "fu** you, pay me" type, once I'm not paying them anymore or worse, competition pays them better, they're out. A lot worse since they're out with whatever competitive advantage I managed to build, pushing through ignorance, discouragement and plain hostility from the environment surrounding me.

That's why my idea of *working together* with someone already skilled and involved in this like myself.