238: From Developer to Options Trader - Interview w/ Jack Slocum, OA Founder

In this episode of the Option Alpha podcast, Kirk sits down with his business partner and fellow founder, Jack Slocum, to share the full story behind Jack’s journey as a trader, developer, and entrepreneur. Jack talks about how he first turned to options trading to generate extra income for his family, how his early experiences “crashed and burned,” and why he has spent years since then learning as much as possible about markets and risk. Tune in now! 

How Jack First Got Into Options Trading:

• Jack says his options journey started as a father looking to make extra income to support his family.

From Tech Builder to Trading:

• Before options, Jack’s primary background was in technology and building companies.
• He created a JavaScript framework originally called EXTJS, later part of Sencha, which allowed developers to build full web applications in the browser.
• The framework became widely adopted, with usage by 8 out of the top 10 financial institutions and over 70% of Fortune 500 companies.
• Jack emphasizes that the community was the strength of that project: developers shared what they were building and provided the core toolkit with their own “extensions.”

Faith, Mindset, and Staying Inspired Through Drawdowns:

• He credits his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, for his determination, passion, and success.
• He says this gives him a resilient state he can tap into no matter what is happening.
• Kirk shares a mindset he learned from Jack: instead of saying “we can’t,” ask “how could we?”
• Jack connects this to his belief that all things are possible for someone who believes.
• He says reframing problems this way opens the door to solutions instead of shutting them down.

Key Trading Principles Jack Follows Now:

• Jack says the most important principle is never to enter a trade unless you are willing to take the maximum loss.
• In the past, he entered trades assuming he could always get out before max loss, which led to huge losses.
• He rarely uses stop losses as a guarantee because during big moves, spreads widen, and fills can be much worse than planned.
• An example of his opening range breakout bot, which sometimes risks $925 to make $75 and makes him uneasy.
• He prefers to run a mix of strategies, including both higher-probability, smaller payoff setups and lower-probability, larger-payoff setups.
• Jack says every trade should have a clear, logical reason behind it, and not be fear based.

Using His Own Platform to Design the Future of Automation:

• At his old company, he would build a real app with new features before a release to find issues.
• Now, he trades daily on Option Alpha and uses that experience to see what needs to be added or improved.

Watch the full interview here