How we pick
our coaches.

We get asked often: "how do you find your coaches?". The honest answer is: we find them slowly. And we refuse more than we accept. Here's the filter, step by step.

Our strictest rule: a Tradermade coach actively trades. Not occasionally. Not "two years ago." Actively, this week, with their own positions and their own risk. It sounds obvious — but it eliminates 90% of candidates on the first read of their application.

01The application

It starts with a complete dossier. We ask each candidate for:

• A trading journal over a meaningful period. Not a screenshot. A full export, with losses, doubts, days off.
• A presentation of the method. Written. With its limits, biases, cases where it doesn't work.
• References. Former students, former employers, partners. We call.
• A letter. Why teach. Why here. Why now.

If any of these four elements is missing or sloppy, we stop. It's strict, but it's consistent with what we ask Coaching members.

02The live test

If the application passes, we move to the phase that eliminates another good half of remaining candidates: the trial live session. Concretely, we ask the future coach to hold an open session of one hour, in front of us and a panel of volunteer members.

The goal isn't to see if they make PnL. It's to see how they:

• Explain a decision they make in real time
• React to a sharp question from a member
• Handle a setup that doesn't trigger as planned
• Acknowledge, or not, a mistake

Many people can talk about trading. Few can work out loud while they trade. That's exactly what we expect from our coaches.

We're not chasing performance. We're chasing readability. A good coach is someone whose reasoning you understand, even when they're wrong.

The TM team  ·  Internal note on coach selection

03What we systematically refuse

To be fully transparent, here's what makes us say no, no matter what other qualities the candidate has:

• Selling signals. If you've ever run a "paid signals" channel, we stop here. It's philosophical, not personal.
• Promising a percentage. No Tradermade coach says "you'll make X%." We educate, we don't oracle.
• No longer trading. "I teach courses and my method works" — without open positions right now, it's a no.
• Selling courses for thousands elsewhere. If your business model is built on €3,000 packs, it's not ours.
• Refusing the quarterly audit. All our coaches submit their results to an independent third party. If that's a problem for you, it's a signal for us.

04Why this is public

We publish this for two reasons.

The first: our members deserve to know how their coaches are picked. If you're paying attention to what someone tells you during a session, you have a right to know how that person got there. Simple as that.

The second: we hope it helps the profession. Retail trading has a guru problem. The more platforms apply a filter like ours, the better for everyone.

If you're a coach reading this thinking "I could apply", write to us. We read everything. And if you wouldn't apply but you think we should add a criterion to this list, also write to us. We read everything, really.