The Hedge Fund Book Preface - How Richard Wilson Got Into Hedge Funds

The preface of “The Hedge Fund Book” starts with Richard Wilson explaining why he wrote this thing in the first place. And honestly, his reason is pretty relatable. He read most hedge fund books out there over seven years and couldn’t find one that gave you straight, unfiltered advice from actual hedge fund managers.

Lots of books on strategies. Lots of books on financial models and risk. But nothing that felt like sitting down with a bunch of fund managers and asking them “okay, what actually works and what doesn’t?” So he decided to write that book himself.

What Wilson Wants You to Learn

He lays out a clear list of what this book should teach you. Here’s the short version:

• How any hedge fund can get better at day-to-day operations right away
• Why most fund managers are bad at raising capital, and what they can do about it
• How to set up good governance so investors trust you more
• What billion-dollar hedge funds learned the hard way, so you don’t have to repeat their mistakes
• Why 80% of what the media says about hedge funds is just wrong
• How to double your capital-raising results by focusing on positioning instead of just throwing numbers at investors
• How small and mid-size funds can improve without spending millions

That’s a solid list. Especially the part about media coverage being off-base. Anyone who has worked in finance knows the gap between headlines and reality is huge.

Who This Book Is For

Wilson says the audience includes hedge fund managers, traders, students, professors, service providers, investors, consultants, and people in his CHP Designation program. That’s basically everyone.

But here’s what I found interesting. He claims the book is worth over $80,500 in consulting advice, based on the time all the interviewed managers and consultants put in. And it costs less than $75. That’s a bold claim. Whether you buy that math or not, the point is clear: he packed a lot of real-world interviews and advice into one place.

He also mentions over 50 video and audio resources available at HedgeFundTraining.com to go with the book. So it’s not just text. There’s a multimedia component to it.

Wilson’s Personal Story

This is the part I liked most. Wilson shares how he actually got into the hedge fund world.

It started in 2001 with an internship at a currency and commodity hedge fund in Europe. He was doing research on trading indicators for currencies and commodities in Japan, New Zealand, and Australia. Pretty specific stuff.

After that, he got interested in the marketing and sales side. Not managing money, but raising it. He went out on his own and signed contracts to raise capital for a boutique investment bank in New York and a fund of hedge funds group based in South Africa.

Then he took a job at a third-party marketing firm. This is where things get real. His job was to market three very different clients: an $80 billion long-only firm, a $30 million U.S. hedge fund, and an $800 million global macro fund. He had to research investors, build databases, make calls, work conferences, create marketing materials. The whole grind.

And here’s the honest part that I respect. He raised exactly $0 in his first 11 months. Zero. Nothing. For almost a full year.

Then something clicked. He started raising $100,000 a week. After 18 months, he was pulling in $1 million to $3 million a week. That’s a wild turnaround. And it’s the kind of detail you rarely see in business books. Most authors skip the failure part.

Going Solo

While doing all this marketing work, Wilson noticed something about the hedge fund industry. It was fragmented. Most fund marketers were just copying what their competitors did. Nobody was doing real training on capital raising. Nobody was focusing on positioning or writing good copy. Nobody was using educational marketing.

At the same time, his side projects were growing. The Hedge Fund Group, his online networking association, hit over 30,000 members. His blog, HedgeFundBlogger.com, became the most visited hedge fund website around.

So in 2008, he started his own firm. By the time the book was written, his company ran three product lines: training programs (including the CHP Designation), a blog network with over 5,000 original articles and videos, and capital-raising tools used by more than 1,600 fund managers. He had 25 full and part-time employees.

The Honesty Factor

One thing I appreciated is Wilson’s transparency about his own financial interests. He straight up tells you that some examples in the book overlap with his own clients and products. Three of the 25 people he interviewed were his consulting clients. And he lists every website he owns that gets mentioned in the book.

You don’t see that kind of disclosure very often. Most authors just pretend they have no conflicts of interest. Wilson puts it all on the table and lets you decide.

My Take

This preface does its job well. You get the “why” behind the book, you understand Wilson’s background, and you know what you’re getting into. The zero-to-millions capital raising story is genuinely compelling. And the fact that he spent 11 months failing before figuring it out makes everything else he says more believable.

The book promises practical, ground-level advice from real managers. Based on this preface, Wilson has the experience to deliver on that promise. Let’s see how the rest of the book holds up.

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