Imma definitely gonna paper trade, more precisely I'm building an automated system to trade my strategy. On virtual accounts first, but this is how they do it in finance too - test as close to production as possible.
If it still works, fine, I'm gonna trade my own money and in a lot more confidence, try to scale up by selling my system to someone with real capital.
The way I see it, "selling my system" means full disclosure of the mathematical theory involved and practical finance / trading insights I'm using. I'm also capable of building the software involved, though most likely an upgraded version will be required. I'm testing on one market at the moment (the US one) since I anyways don't have money for more, but if the system works, there are a lot of similar ones around the world - Europe, Asia.
Question is what I do if the system doesn't work. I could definitely use an associate of similar qualifications, to review the particular strategy I developed, but in a more general setting, to discuss my view of the market and the grasp of mathematical techniques I use. But there is the very sensitive issue of trust and leak of competitive edge. I got to the current point by hard work over many years and even if I don't yet make money, I have my research directions which build upon each other in time. Sure as funk don't want them leaked to the giant corporate money making machine.
Worst case but probably the realistic approach, I'll "keep it in the family". My nephew is just graduating high school and will go to university in the same city where I live. He's fairly mathsy like me (my older brother is a high school math teacher) and also has some more than casual interest in sports gambling - I only need to redirect that to a more lucrative market
Problem's he's still a junior and with my best mentoring it will still take years for him to be productive.