Ask a funding provider what disqualifies a trader and you will hear about risk long before you hear about return. The reason is structural: an allocator can size up a modest, stable edge, but cannot size around a trader who occasionally risks the account.
Tenure
Length of record is the cheapest filter there is. Three months of results carries almost no information about process; two years of measured results carries a great deal, even when the returns are unremarkable.
Drawdown, and what followed it
Maximum drawdown sets the size of the position an allocator can take. Recovery behaviour tells them what the trader does under pressure — whether size went up after a loss, whether the strategy changed, how long it took to get back.
Consistency of process
Instruments, holding periods and position sizing that stay recognisable across years suggest a process. A record that changes shape every quarter suggests a trader searching for one, which is a different proposition and usually a later one.
Verifiability
Everything above matters only if it can be checked. This is the part traders control most directly and think about least: a record that is already being measured at source is one an allocator can act on now, and an allocator acting now is the entire point.
None of this is advice, and meeting every criterion here guarantees nothing. Firms allocate on their own terms, and most of what decides an allocation happens in a conversation we are not part of.