Our Story

The Origins

It all started in 2025 with Jon, an independent retail trader who was running a weekly income program and needed analytical firepower. Rather than hiring a Wall Street firm, he brought in two students at UW-Madison — Liam Salama and Javier Schultz, now two of Collect52's three co-founders (meet the full team) — and that collaboration became the foundation for this business.

Jon had recently retired, and a standard buy-and-hold approach wasn't going to get him where he wanted to go. He wanted a disciplined, income-producing strategy that kept him liquid and grew through active effort rather than hope — but doing it alone meant no framework to lean on and no way to stress-test his own thinking.

Putting It to Work

Over the course of three months, we worked with Jon, learning his system and trading style, identifying weaknesses, and ultimately helping him reach his profit goals.

Why We Built This for Others

After helping Jon reach his goal, he didn't really need us anymore — which made us think: if it works at this scale, others deserve access to it too. So in 2026, we started Collect52.

The same rigor Jon got — real backtesting, a second opinion on every setup, nothing black-boxed — is what every free Collect52 account gets today. See exactly how we calculate it on our methodology page, or create a free account below to see it for yourself.