Real-time options analytics built with institutional precision.

Why I Built Lavender - A Letter from the Founder

For more than two decades, I’ve built the systems that professional options traders rely on every day.

I founded Derivix in the mid-2000s and wrote every core component myself—pricing models, volatility analytics, risk engines, the montage, and the entire execution stack. Derivix grew into a respected institutional platform and was eventually acquired by FlexTrade. That experience taught me what traders truly need: clarity, speed, accurate analytics, and tools that stay out of the way.

After Derivix, I spent 12 years at Parallax Volatility Advisors, one of the top volatility trading firms in the world. There, I built the firm’s complete front-office system from scratch: the professional options board, the real-time risk engine, the volatility surface tools, and a world-class execution platform capable of thousands of transactions per second across multiple brokers.

I had a front-row seat to how the best volatility traders think, how they make decisions, how they manage risk under pressure, and how the right software gives them an edge. I learned what truly matters—and what doesn’t. I learned what breaks under stress. I learned how to build tools that scale with capital, speed, and uncertainty.

But there was always something missing.

The tools that truly empower elite traders were never available to anyone outside a handful of firms.

Retail platforms were too slow or too shallow.

Institutional platforms were too rigid, too complex, or locked behind high costs and legacy infrastructure.

I knew I could change that.

So I decided to build Lavender Trading Systems—a modern, elegant options platform that brings institutional intelligence to traders everywhere. Not watered-down. Not simplified. Not “good enough.”

True, professional-grade analytics and execution logic—built on everything I’ve learned across Derivix, Parallax, and 20 years of engineering for some of the sharpest volatility minds in the world.

Lavender is the system I always wished existed:

fast, clean, accurate, intuitive, visual, powerful, and unconstrained by outdated technology or bureaucracy.

It runs in two places:

• Lavender Montage for desktop, for deep work, risk management, and real-time market navigation

• Lavender Bot for Discord, for instant insight and seamless daily use

It’s the culmination of my life’s work.

Every model, every visualization, every execution pathway, every tiny interaction detail reflects decades of experience building systems that actually sit on trading desks and make real decisions with real capital.

My goal is simple: To give serious traders the tools they deserve—tools built with institutional depth, modern design, and zero compromises.

To take what was once reserved for the top 1% of the industry and make it available, accessible, and beautifully usable.

That’s why I built Lavender.

And we’re only just getting started.

— Jonathan Weedon

Founder & Chief Architect

Lavender Trading Solutions

Jonathan K. Weedon
Founder & CEO/CTO, Lavender Trading Solutions

Jonathan Weedon is a technologist and market strategist with more than two decades of experience building institutional-grade options systems. He founded Derivix in the mid-2000s—writing the pricing models, volatility engines, risk systems, montage, and execution stack that powered one of the industry’s leading professional platforms before its acquisition by FlexTrade.

He then spent 12 years at Parallax Volatility Advisors, where he built the firm’s complete front-office system from scratch: a real-time risk engine, volatility surface tools, an institutional execution platform, and a full options board used by some of the sharpest volatility traders in the world.

Jonathan brings this same institutional clarity and engineering rigor to Lavender Trading Solutions, with a simple mission: to give serious traders the tools they deserve—fast, accurate, intuitive analytics built without legacy constraints or unnecessary complexity.