I'll give a couple observations:
1. It's becoming easier to find people with good track records.
No, I am not talking about KaChing or Covestor. There are actually two sites that exist where you can apply for entry. They are heavily populated by people who already work at hedge funds, so the process is pretty rigorous. One is SumZero operated by Divya Narendra (the guy who sued Zuckerberg), the other is VIC run by Joel Greenblatt (runs Gotham Capital, professor at Columbia).
In these sites, you post investment ideas which are then rated by the community. Because the community consists mostly of hedge fund analysts, it is pretty tough to get a good rating. But for those that do, it becomes easier to get jobs or raise capital. Greenblatt in particular uses his site to identify talent and in the past has seeded members (Michael Burry is one of them). In general, the sites help in networking which is the key (IMO) to landing a HF job or raising capital.
2. Blogs and an online presence are helping connect inexperienced students of investing with hedge fund managers/wealthy people.
I know a few people who started blogs where they posted investment ideas and news, and then went on to use their online presence to network in real life.
One of these people attracted $1M in seed funding from a well known investor, who then would routinely introduce him to other businessmen/wealthy individuals and helped raise capital. This was a kid that managed to start a $15M fund straight out of undergrad. A couple of others followed a similar path. Started a blog > used it to network > wrote and published books > networked some more and eventually raised capital to start small funds.
I also think some of the barriers to entry in the HF biz are coming down, a little bit. I had 3 interviews last week that all came as a result of having an investment blog. It's interesting because most of the people at these firms have had years of experience working at investment banks and graduated from ivy league schools (both of which I lack).
3. It's becoming easier to market yourself/your fund.
I see a lot of young/new fund managers offer to do interviews for blogs where they go into their investment process and how they think about markets, plus a few past and current ideas. These interviews work as wonderful marketing tools.
Some funds will also leak their investment letters to bloggers which will contain all sorts of returns data and more about their process. This is kind of a sketchy area because you really are not supposed to be advertising returns to the public. Usually what happens is, the letters stay up for a while and then are taken down after a period of time.
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Now, the people I've seen that take this path generally start small funds in the single to double digit millions. They all have offices they rent and they take a very small personal salary. But after a year or two of good returns, it's been pretty easy for them to scale up. One has went from $5M in AUM to $50M in just a few years.