David Jackson brought time reports to the sales pitch. There are more theatrical ways to introduce a software business. One could discuss the future, preferably beside a diagram. Jackson could show a prospective customer what developers had worked on, when they had worked, and how long it had taken. The paperwork had become part of the proposition.
It is a useful place to begin with FullStack’s co-founder and former CEO. His public accounts of running the company keep returning to ordinary commercial questions. Who will buy? Who will deliver? Can the customer see what happened? Can the next employee find the answer without asking the founder?
These questions seldom look handsome on a conference backdrop. They do, however, become rather pressing when a business has employees, clients, and another month approaching. Jackson’s career offers a close view of the effort required to keep those three things in a workable relationship.
The salesperson before the software company
Before FullStack, Jackson was a vice president of sales and partner at CAE, a marketplace for buying and selling used capital equipment. His education was in business administration at California State University, Sacramento, where he graduated summa cum laude. His route into running a software company therefore included a substantial commercial apprenticeship.
A former CAE colleague, Jonathan Jair, described Jackson’s selling as deliberate and consultative. Another colleague, Jared Townsend, recalled working with him as co-founders of ScreenPoint Digital Advertising Networks and praised his grasp of business, sales, and operations. Across those recollections, the recurring work is bringing customers and an operating business together.
Selling equipment and selling software development are different propositions. Yet both require a buyer to understand what is being offered and decide whether the seller can deliver. That commercial question helps explain why the unadorned time report would later earn its place in Jackson’s pitch.
Two founders, different jobs
Jackson’s own early-growth account places him and business partner Mike Piccolo in the living room of his house in late 2015. The detail is domestic; the division of responsibility was quite deliberate. Jackson took sales and operations. Piccolo took technology and the management of clients and projects.
His advice to new founders followed the same logic: choose someone whose abilities complement your own. He also favored direct selling over events, action over elaborate long-range forecasts, and establishing revenue before expecting premium prices. He acknowledged that priorities change as a company grows.
His prescription for the tempting industry cocktail hour was especially economical: “Stay in the office and pick up the phone.” Somewhere, an untouched canapé awaits an explanation.
There is an impatience with ceremonial business activity in that advice. A founder can spend a day looking convincingly occupied. Jackson wanted the day to produce a customer. The distinction becomes useful when both the calendar and the bank balance are asking for attention.
& operations
& client projects
The surprisingly persuasive invoice
At FullStack, time tracking reached beyond billable developers to the wider team. Jackson described giving clients daily reports, with descriptions of the work behind their charges. An internal bot pulled the information and sent it out. Time away from work did not become an extra charge to the customer.
Toggl Track and Jira also helped connect project estimates, assigned tasks, and the review of two-week sprints. The company could examine what had been completed, identify obstacles, and compare effort with expectations. The same records supported revenue and profitability calculations.
“It helps us win more business,” Jackson said.
That short assessment captures the attraction of the arrangement. A record created for administration could answer a sales objection. A buyer considering an outside development team could see how the relationship would be accounted for after the contract was signed. The report gave a promise a shape. It also invited a more precise conversation. Instead of wondering what a block of billed time meant, the client could ask about the particular work recorded within it. There was something to discuss together.
“It helps us win more business.”
David Jackson, on time-tracking visibility
When the answer stopped fitting in a conversation
Inside the business, another kind of visibility became necessary. Jackson recalled that a team of two or three people could communicate procedures verbally. As more people joined, that informal arrangement became harder to maintain. Word documents followed, then grew unwieldy.
The company moved procedures into Guru cards. Development guidance covered recurring work such as version control, deployment, and checks before a project manager reviewed front-end work. New developers were asked to read the cards as part of joining the team. Repeated administrative questions could also receive a searchable answer.
The charmingly unheroic part is that a founder could improve the day by making himself less necessary to it. An answer stored where people could find it saved another interruption. A checklist gave the next developer a starting point. The company’s memory acquired somewhere to live besides the people who had been there longest.
That is a particular kind of growth: more people able to do their work without waiting for the same person to reply.
Colombia, beyond the map pin
Building a team across borders introduced a different set of practicalities. Jackson discussed Colombia’s computer-science talent and the ability to work with colleagues during overlapping hours. He also described the local assistance required to establish the business: an international law firm, employment-contract consultants, and accounting support.
The process of establishing the Colombian business took eight weeks in his account. His recommendation to others was to secure capable legal and accounting help. The opportunity came with work that had to be understood locally.
In his explanation of FullStack’s “Nearshore Plus” approach, Jackson described mixing US and Latin American designers, developers, and project managers, with US-based technical and project leadership. The aim was to combine cost advantages with accessible oversight and communication.
The model makes coordination part of the service being sold. A developer’s rate matters, but so does the ability to ask a question and receive an answer while the working day is still in progress. Geography enters the product through the calendar.
project leadership↔Latin American
engineering teams
A small company moving internationally has to solve two problems at once: finding people who can do the work and creating an organization in which they can do it together. Jackson’s account gives the second problem its proper share of the room.
These are operating choices with consequences for both sides of a contract. The buyer wants progress without a long chain of unanswered questions. The people making the software need decisions, feedback, and a clear understanding of who owns the next step. An international team brings those familiar needs into sharper focus.
The cost of having the last word
Hands-on management has limits, too. In a 2018 account of dealing with commercial disputes, Jackson discussed contract issues and unpaid invoices. His approach included handing cases to an attorney and, when necessary, giving one employee responsibility for documents and deadlines.
He described remaining open to settlements rather than allowing the desire to win to consume the business owner’s attention. FullStack had reached agreements in its disputes, he said. The calendar imposed a cost on pursuing an argument, however justified the owner felt.
That is a revealing counterweight to his preference for rolling up his sleeves. Some matters demand involvement. Others demand the discipline to let a designated person handle them. The founder who insists on personally attending to everything may eventually have very little time for customers.
There was also room for a smaller gesture. One client recalled that Jackson contributed $25 to its crowdfunding campaign. The customer described conversations before signing a contract and an impression that FullStack cared about the project’s purpose. Twenty-five dollars would scarcely transform a software budget. It was enough to be remembered.
A business with room to move on
FullStack’s later development extended beyond its original company name. In April 2024, it brought FullStack Labs and FullStack Talent together under the FullStack identity: one offering for development work, another for staffing. The combination gave customers different ways to engage with the business.
Leadership changed as well. The company’s October 2025 announcement appointing Anton Tomchenko as CEO stated that Benjamin Carle had served in that position since 2024. Jackson’s earlier chief-executive years had become part of the company’s history. Executive directories now list him as chairman.
The succession belongs in his story because building a company creates responsibilities that eventually extend beyond a founder’s own daily work. Customers still need delivery. Colleagues still need answers. New leadership inherits an operation that has to function.
Jackson’s contribution comes into focus through the details he chose to discuss: the report a customer could inspect, the responsibility a partner could own, the instructions a new colleague could find. Each gave another person a way to proceed. A business gets larger, in part, when the founder has made enough of those ways available.
It is an appropriately practical ending for a founder who recommended making the call rather than attending the cocktail hour. The next person does not need to be persuaded by a grand account of ambition. They need something they can use: a conversation, an answer, a piece of work whose purpose is clear. Jackson’s public working life keeps bringing the story back to that scale.