Lantern Business Documentation

Start here. This is the index for everything business-related. The goal of this layout is to avoid document drift: the repo does not keep its own copy of the business plan, it points at the one canonical source.

Canonical source (external, the single source of truth)

The authoritative Lantern Business Plan is a Google Doc owned by Mechelle:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NiVG3pwRtyNaX9XgmSPzGc6tLoNohulgHVBQp6OAc2o/edit

It owns pricing, financials, market, go-to-market, governance, capital strategy, and the roadmap. When anything in this repo conflicts with it on those topics, the Google Doc wins.

Policy: do not re-describe the plan's pricing, financials, market, or strategy inside the repo. Update the Google Doc instead. Repo docs may reference it, not duplicate it. That is what keeps the two from drifting.

Current, in-repo (complements the plan, does not duplicate it)

Business:

• COMPLEXITY_VS_STAGE.md - Build-sequencing / complexity-vs-stage risk assessment, grounded in the codebase
• IP_STRATEGY.md - IP protection and competitive moat
• COMPETITORS.md - Competitive landscape
• EVENT_FIRST_GTM.md - Event-first go-to-market playbook
• MERCHANT_INTEGRATION_POA.md - Merchant integration plan of action
• MERCHANT_INTEGRATION_SUMMARY.md - Merchant integration status
• TEAM_STRUCTURE.md - Org structure, roles, compensation
• launches/README.md - Launch timeline

Economics (financial modeling and tooling):

• ../economics/FUND_ALLOCATION.md - Fund allocation framework (Four Pillars, profit sharing)
• ../economics/AD_PLACEMENT_ECONOMICS.md - Ad rotation/pacing economics and fairness design
• ../economics/CALCULATOR.md - Financial modeling and sensitivity analysis
• ../economics/financial-calculators/ - Interactive calculators

The economics calculators now anchor on the plan's $150 flat campaign (per-redemption is unpriced upside you can model by raising the ARPU input). The Google Doc remains authoritative on pricing and financials.

Governance (canonical in-repo)

The plan treats the governance docs as authoritative in-repo. See ../governance/, including IMMUTABLE_RIGHTS.md, GOVERNANCE.md, DECISION_MAKING_AUTHORITY.md, ANTI_GREED_SAFEGUARDS.md, SHAREHOLDER_LENDER_FRAMEWORK.md, and TEAM_STRUCTURE.md.

Archived (historical, superseded by the plan)

The January 2026 plan scaffolding has been archived to ../archive/business-2026-01/: BUSINESS.md, PILOT_STRATEGY.md, FOUNDER_CONTEXT.md, QUICK_START_PILOT.md, and ECONOMICS.md. They are retained for history only. Do not treat their pricing ($1 per-redemption, $165 ARPU), single-city market, or financial projections as current.