One Prop Trader a Day – Aditya Shinde: I Invested Zero of My Own Money

One Prop Trader a Day – Episode 117

Can you get funded without ever paying for a challenge? Aditya Shinde, 18 and from Pune, started learning charts in May 2025 and has since collected around 2,697 dollars in payouts and competition prizes with none of his own money invested, winning a Funding Traders competition ahead of 842 other entrants along the way. In this interview, he explains the 3,000 dollars the lesson cost him before that, the day he executed on XAU/AUD instead of XAU/USD, and why he thinks sitting on his hands is sometimes the best trade available.

My name is Aditya, I’m 18 years old and I’m from Pune, Maharashtra, India. I’m a full-time trader and currently pursuing my B.Com. I started learning trading in May 2025, and my main focus is XAU/USD (Gold), along with instruments like US100 and BTC. My trading is mainly based on Smart Money Concepts (SMC), PO3, session ranges and supply-and-demand confirmations. I mostly focus on short-term setups, especially on the 1-minute and 15-minute timeframes.

My first major breakthrough came when I won a prop firm competition and eventually received my first payout from a free funded account. My first payout was 920 dollars, and that moment changed my mindset completely. Before that, trading was something I was learning and experimenting with. After receiving that payout, I realized that the skills I was developing could actually create real results. It didn’t make me feel like I had made it. Instead, it made me take trading much more seriously.

For me the biggest proof wasn’t really a specific luxury purchase. It was seeing money from trading actually reach me after all the time I had spent learning and failing. That first 920 dollar payout was the moment I felt, okay, this is actually real. It wasn’t about what I could buy with it. It was about proving to myself that the countless hours of chart analysis, mistakes and learning weren’t for nothing.

I failed multiple times before that. I’ve blown funded accounts, failed challenges, and had periods where I felt like I was completely back at zero. There were definitely moments when quitting would have been easier. But every failure taught me something, whether it was risk management, overtrading, emotional control, or simply understanding that one good trade doesn’t make you a good trader. What kept me coming back was the belief that failure was part of the process, not the final result. I didn’t want to look back years later and wonder what would have happened if I had just stayed consistent.

The most expensive lesson I’ve paid for is learning that risk management matters more than being right. I’ve lost thousands of dollars across trading and funded account attempts. If I had to put a number on the overall lesson, I’d say around 3,000 dollars. But honestly, the money wasn’t the only cost. The bigger cost was the time, stress and confidence I lost along the way. Now I understand that protecting capital comes before trying to make money.

Trading did take a mental and emotional toll, absolutely. It can be mentally exhausting, especially when you’re dealing with losses, failed challenges, or a trade that you know you shouldn’t have taken. Earlier, I used to let a losing trade affect the next trade. That’s one of the biggest mistakes I made. Now I’m trying to separate myself from the result of a single trade. A loss doesn’t mean I’m a bad trader, and a win doesn’t mean I’m a genius. My focus now is on following my setup, controlling my risk, and accepting that losses are simply part of trading.

I’ve traded with several prop firms, including Capital Chain, Funding Traders, Goat Funded Trader, FundedNext, Funding Pips and others. When I look at a prop firm, I don’t just look at the account size or the cheapest challenge. I look at the rules, drawdown structure, payout history, consistency requirements, trading conditions and overall transparency. A $100K account sounds great, but if the rules don’t fit your strategy, the account size doesn’t really matter.

My main market is XAU/USD, because that’s the market I’ve spent the most time studying. I mainly use the 1-minute and 15-minute timeframes for my execution and analysis. My approach combines Smart Money Concepts, PO3, session ranges and supply-and-demand zones. I don’t want to take trades just because the market is moving. I’m looking for a specific setup with confirmation. My biggest change over time has been realizing that not trading is also a position.

I usually start my day by looking at the bigger picture rather than immediately entering trades. First, I mark important higher-timeframe zones and identify the overall market structure. Then I look at the relevant trading session and wait for price to reach an area where I have a setup. Once my conditions are met, I wait for confirmation on the lower timeframe. If the setup isn’t there, I don’t force it.

One of my recent mistakes was actually trading XAU/AUD instead of XAU/USD. I was focused on the setup and didn’t properly check the instrument before executing the trade. That sounds like a simple mistake, but it reminded me that trading isn’t only about analysis. You can have a good strategy and still lose because of a basic execution mistake. If I could do it again, I’d slow down before every entry and follow a simple checklist: correct instrument, setup, risk, stop loss and confirmation.

My biggest milestone was reaching around 2,697 dollars in total payouts and competition prizes within around eight months of starting my trading journey. What makes it even more meaningful is that I started with zero dollars of my own investment. Everything I earned came through free funded accounts and prop firm competitions. That included my first 920 dollar payout, a 1,500 dollar competition prize, and another payout of around 277 dollars. But the money isn’t even the biggest part for me. The biggest milestone was going from someone who was just learning charts in May 2025 to competing, getting funded, receiving payouts, and developing my own trading process. It proved to me that I could start from scratch, invest nothing of my own, and turn the skills I built into something real.

Not everyone understands trading. To many people, it looks like I’m just sitting in front of charts or taking random trades. They don’t see the hours of studying, backtesting, analyzing and learning from mistakes behind it. Some people support me, some don’t really understand it, and some probably think I’m taking a huge risk with my future. I don’t blame them. Trading is difficult to explain to someone who has never experienced it. So instead of trying to convince everyone, I’d rather let my results and consistency speak for me.

I don’t think I’m necessarily smarter or more talented than someone who quit after their third failed challenge. The difference is that I kept going and kept learning from the failures. I’ve had moments where I’ve been back at zero. I’ve blown accounts and made mistakes that I knew I shouldn’t have made. But every time, I tried to understand why it happened.

If someone gave me a 1,000,000 dollar funded account today, honestly, I wouldn’t suddenly start trading bigger just because the account is bigger. My first priority would be protecting the account. For the first few days I’d study the account’s rules, understand the drawdown and risk limits, and continue trading the same setups I’ve already developed. I’d keep my risk small, focus on XAU/USD, and avoid forcing trades just because I had access to a 1 million dollar account. The biggest mistake would be thinking, I have 1 million dollars, so I need to make a lot of money.

Verified funded – the receipts