Jackson brought me on for a $4,000 contract which he scoped to 2 weeks of work. Realistically, this was closer to at least a $20,000 scope of work that he heavily downplayed. The project timeline for this scope began in October and still isn't finished (100 days and counting)

He was the primary designer and owned 0 → 1 for the whole platform (small bootstrapped b2b software). I was brought on to build out a number of complex core flows that he didn't have bandwidth for.

I knocked out all my work as quickly as possible to stay on track with the timeline, but kept getting blocked by delays from Jackson. After many missed deadlines and canceled calls on his end, I eventually asked the client what was going on.

That's when I learned that Jackson had been derailing this project for over a year. He had gaslit the client and team into believing he'd finish in a few days, in a week, in a month… over and over and over again, stretching the timeline to 9 months past his original (self-imposed) deadline and resulting in missed demos and damaged relationships for his client.

Jackson had also brought on a design contractor before me. He told me that designer left the project after having a newborn child. That was a lie - the last designer left because he got overwhelmed by the misrepresented scope, and Jackson never paid him, which I only learned after I reached out.

But even after I realized I was duped into taking on this scope for pennies on the dollar, I figured I'd finish out the project anyway. I delivered my share of the work to the client and, after being led on for months, asked Jackson to pay me out. He refused and soon after ghosted me.