Self-employed trader looking to break into the investment banking world

Hello everyone,

I am new here and would like to thank everyone in advance for the advice and wisdom.

Long story short, I graduated from the top 15 business schools in the world with a degree in finance in 2016, but instead of getting a job right out of college, I decided to day-trade (something I was doing successfully through college years) and be on my own, and it's been 2 years since. In the meantime, I successfully launched a small business and sold it. Also, I was able to grow my initial $50,000 investment into $300K so far. Whether it be luck or talent, I decided to quit the trading a winner and pursue a career in investment banking. I had never attended a single career or networking event when I was in business school because I was running an iPhone flipping business to pay for my college. It left me with the $50,000 to start my day-trading venture.

Now, breaking into the investment banking and the corporate world seems like a significant challenge to me. I don't have any networks or college buddies because I ignored all their party requests and had to take care of my iPhone business. It was tough to write my resume because all of my work experience comes from me being a small business owner and day-trading. Even though everything in my resume is true, it just looks like BS.

One of the typical questions would rise is that why is he looking for a job if he's so successful on his own? If he created an average annual return of 82%, why doesn't he open up his own shop?... etc. Because I don't want this day-trading income fluctuation anymore. I had to take some ridiculous amount of reckless risks and trade options. It just became not sustainable. In the future, I would like to become a portfolio manager at a hedge fund managing hundreds of mils. So, I gotta start from the analyst now. I am already pursuing my CFA and registered for my level 1 exam in June.

How should I approach this job search? Should I approach headhunters, staffers, and recruiters? I applied to some analyst positions online, but I feel like the online application isn't gonna go too far. I believe I learned tons from operating two small business, and a lot from the trading, and I truly believe that I can be a valuable asset to the firm. How can I show this to potential employees? I don't have references except maybe for my finance professors.

Any help and advice are much appreciated.

Thank you so much, guys.