The phone in the closet
The tech is standing in the IDF with a phone. He needs the jack, the panel, the switch port, and the length — not a spreadsheet back at the shop.
Waukesha, Wisconsin · charge the walk
Charge the walk. Friday, October 30, 2026.
Lantern is live as a Harborline demo. Chrome is this ship: left sidebar, Search icon, icon + LANTERN lockup. Next, in order, before Friday, October 30, 2026: plant CSV, price book, invoice PDF, first real building. Then a check. Mapping is the job. The subscription stays boring. No Stripe.
20
of 25
Until charge day
Friday, October 30, 2026
45
Days
23
Hours
43
Min
33
Sec
Finish speed
How fast the remaining work ships
Chrome is this ship — Tuesday, September 15, 2026. Then plant CSV, price book, invoice PDF, first real building, in that order, before we take a check. Charge-the-walk stays Friday, October 30, 2026. No fake weekly calendar. No Stripe.
Shipped
LiveChrome / plan page
Tuesday, September 15, 2026
Left sidebar, Search icon, icon + LANTERN lockup. Store off the client.
Next
LaterPlant CSV import
Before Friday, October 30, 2026
A live building loads from a file, not compiled Harborline. First in line before charge day.
Next
LaterCompany price book
Before Friday, October 30, 2026
Real SKU prices, not placeholders. After plant import.
Next
LaterInvoice PDF
Before Friday, October 30, 2026
Thin closeout the shop can send. After the price book.
Next
LaterFirst real building
Before Friday, October 30, 2026
An Enlighten / Waukesha job is enough. Last gate before we take a check.
Deadline
LaterCharge the walk
Friday, October 30, 2026
Published fee, freeze if it ages out. Check or QuickBooks. No Stripe.
Phases
Gates, not theater
Harborline is the sample plant, not a customer. Two bills never mix: you pay Enlighten for seats, your customer pays you for the pull. Import is a billed walk.
- 0
Phase 0
Live now
Live - 1
Phase 1
Next build
Later - 2
Phase 2
Then we charge
Next - 3
Phase 3
On the site
Live
Live now
LiveThe tool exists
Harborline is the sample plant. Find, jobs, Fluke PDF, invoices, Team, SOP.
Next build
LaterSellable plant
A real building loads from a file. The shop’s price book is theirs. Invoice PDF is closeout.
Then we charge
NextCharge the walk
Published Lantern fee, freeze if it ages out. Check or QuickBooks. No Stripe.
On the site
LiveSite chrome
Logo, Enlighten footer, contractor pages. Other agents own the mark.
Live
What shops can already walk
- ●Harborline Find, Floors, Lens
- ●Jobs / work orders, PO, SKUs
- ●Fluke PDF upload on the job (no LinkWare parse)
- ●Customer invoices, Net 30
- ●Packages and per-company feature flags
- ●Team — company admin invites techs
- ●SOP / docs
- ●No Stripe at launch — check or QuickBooks
- ●Logo, lockup, favicon live on the product
- ●Collapsible left app rail (icon + LANTERN lockup)
- ●Powered by Enlighten Studios footer
- ●Contractor site, plan, timeline, pricing
- ●Public /launch deadline page + Enlighten admin board
- ●Public /changelog living log
- ●In-app /admin/errors log (no Sentry)
- ●Ops health — /admin/health, public /api/health, reports + repairs
- ●Full business plan on Launch (living log is /changelog)
- ●Find control is a search icon, not a wrapping pill
- ●Account store stays server-only (webpack client bundle)
- ●Finish-speed dates on Launch, admin board, and contractor timeline
Next
Before we take a check
- ○Plant CSV import for a live building (not compiled Harborline)
- ○Per-company price book — real SKU prices, not placeholders
- ○Invoice PDF download (thin closeout)
- ○First non-Harborline building (an Enlighten / Waukesha job is enough)
- ○Published Lantern fee + freeze if seats age out · Oct 30
Enlighten product line
Lantern is a shop tool. Mapping is the business.
Field tool for cabling and IT techs. Enlighten Studios in Waukesha, Wisconsin sells a mapped plant to shops we can drive to. Harborline Logistics is the demo building, not a customer. Software is a meter. The walk is the invoice people understand. This is not a raise and we are not reopening the strategy.
What it is
A field map, then a closeout — not a PSA
Lantern is the jack, the switch port, the IP phone on that drop, the Fluke PDF on the work order, and the bill that matches the PO. One web app the tech already has in his hand. Harborline is how we sell the walk. A paying shop gets their own tenant and their own building file — never a renamed Harborline.
The hole
Closet phone + Fluke PDF + invoice matching PO
Three systems, one closet. Jobber knows the appointment. ConnectWise knows the ticket. LinkWare knows the cert. QuickBooks knows the books. Nobody has the horizontal, the phone on that drop, the tester PDF, and the customer invoice in one place. That is the hole. We stay in it.
The Fluke PDF on the job
The cert lives in LinkWare. Closeout is a scavenger hunt. Lantern stores the Permanent Link PDF on the work order. We do not parse LinkWare. We keep the paper with the pull.
The invoice that matches the PO
Footage, jacks, labor, trip. Customer PO on the work order becomes the PO on the invoice. Net 30. That AR is the shop’s. Enlighten does not take a cut.
Two bills. Never mixed.
Lantern fee vs the shop’s customer AR
Enlighten invoices the shop for seats and for the plant walk. The shop invoices their customer for the pull. We do not take a cut of shop AR. We do not process their cards. We do not sit in the middle of a job check.
Bill 1 · Enlighten → shop
Lantern seats
You pay Enlighten Studios for the office, field seats, and extra buildings. QuickBooks or a check — the way you already pay us. If the invoice ages out, we freeze the tenant. The plant file is still yours.
Bill 2 · Shop → your customer
The job invoice
You bill the building owner from the work order. PO, footage, cert, Net 30. That AR is yours. Enlighten does not take a cut and does not sit on that payment.
Published price
Cable Pro $99 office · $35 field
Office seat $99/mo — one company admin, one building. Named field seat $35/mo. Extra building $30/mo. Plant import typically $3,500 (band $1,500–$8,000 by closet count). A six-person shop is $274/mo, $3,288/yr, plus the walk. Check or QuickBooks. Freeze if it ages out. No Stripe.
Package
MSP (Basic)
$79 /mo office
$25 /mo per field seat
IT bench. Find the jack, file the PC or phone, walk the closet. You do not bill the customer from Lantern.
- + Plant / Find
- + Floors & closets
- + Lens device drops
- + Phones & air
- + Team + SOP
- − Work orders
- − Fluke on the job
- − Customer invoices
Recommended
Cable ProCable Pro
$99 /mo office
$35 /mo per field seat · Extra building $30/mo
The offer. Drops, footage, Fluke PDF, work order, invoice that matches the PO.
- + Plant / Find
- + Work orders + PO
- + Fluke PDF on the job
- + Customer invoices, Net 30
- + Team + SOP
- − Live LDAP
- − Switch scrape
- − LinkWare API
Package
Advanced (IT & Cable)
$129 /mo office
$45 /mo per field seat
Shops that do both. Plant, equipment, the pull, the cert, and the bill in one nav.
- + Everything in Cable Pro
- + MSP plant tools
- + Wi-Fi walk samples
- + One Lens button
- − Native phone apps
- − Card capture
Package
Billing
$79 /mo office
No field plant seats
Office ledger only. Work orders, PO, invoices, SOP. No closet map.
- + Work orders + PO
- + Invoices, Net 30
- + Team + SOP
- − Find / floors
- − Lens
- − Fluke
Next build — then we charge
Plant CSV import + company price book + invoice PDF
We do not take a shop’s money until a real building loads from a file, the price book is theirs, and the invoice PDF is a closeout they can send. Harborline stays the sample plant. Stripe stays later — after a shop has paid by check and asked for a card. Pay Enlighten the way shops already pay us: check or QuickBooks. If seats age out, freeze the tenant. Plant file stays. Logins do not. Charge-the-walk stays Friday, October 30, 2026.
- + Chrome / plan page — Tuesday, September 15, 2026 (this ship).
- + Plant CSV import for a live building — next, before charge day.
- + Per-company price book — after plant import, before charge day.
- + Sendable invoice PDF (thin closeout) — after the price book, before charge day.
- + First real building: an Enlighten / Waukesha job — last gate before we take a check.
- + Charge the walk — Friday, October 30, 2026.
- + Seats invoiced from QuickBooks, Net 15. Import: 50% to book the walk, remainder when the plant is live.
- − No Stripe in this phase.
$1,500
Small closet
One closet, under ~100 drops, labels you can trust.
$3,500
Typical office
Two to four closets, a real floor plate, as-builts that are mostly true. This is the number we quote from.
$8,000
Campus / messy plant
Five-plus closets, fiction as-builts, or a walk that takes days. Quote before we badge in.
In the walk: Site walk or as-built review — closets, racks, panels, jack fields; Cable ID scheme written down so the next tech can type it; Horizontals: jack, room, closet, panel port, length when we can measure or read it; Phones and PCs when they are labeled on the drop; CSV loaded into that company’s Lantern tenant — plant is their data, not Harborline; One review pass with the company admin before we call it live. Out: Live LDAP, switch scrapes, or controller reads; Fluke testing or certifying the plant; Estimating, takeoff, or a bid package; Moving their QuickBooks, Jobber, or ConnectWise; A second building (that is another import). 50% to book the walk. Remainder when the plant is live in their tenant. Same check / QuickBooks path as seats.
Who buys
Structured cabling first
Structured cabling / low-voltage contractors
First call. Cable Pro is the package.
MSP with a cabling sideline
Second. Start MSP Basic; flip Cable Pro when they bill the pull.
Facility / campus IT
Later. They want the map. They are not the first check.
Wisconsin first calls: Kelley Communications, RD Technology, Edge Electric, Kohl, Terminal-Andrae.
Economics
1–5 shops vs 20–40 Midwest
1–5 shops
A studio tool
Five Cable Pro shops at the six-person example is $1,370/mo software — $16,440/yr. Year-one imports on five buildings at the typical fee add $17,500. Hosting is the VM we already run. Time is Mike plus the agents. This band pays for the product existing. It is not a company.
20–40 shops
A Midwest line item
Thirty shops at the same mix is $8,220/mo, about $98,640/yr on seats, plus mapping whenever a building is new. That is a real line on Enlighten’s books. Do not staff a hunter for it. Do not count forty shops as a plan until five have paid.
The subscription is cheap on purpose. Import is where the cash shows up in year one. If a walk blows past the quote because the drawings were fiction, requote — don’t eat it. Charge the walk every time a building is new.
What we will not build
Not D-Tools, Accubid, ConnectWise, QuickBooks, LinkWare, or iTRACS
- − A D-Tools or Accubid competitor (estimating, takeoff, bid packages)
- − A ConnectWise / PSA replacement (helpdesk tickets, agreements, time sheets)
- − A QuickBooks replacement (payroll, books, tax)
- − Fluke LinkWare or a tester API — we store the PDF they already export
- − iTRACS / DCIM for data centers
- − Live LDAP bind or switch scrapes as a launch requirement
- − Native App Store / Play binaries until developer accounts and signing are real
- − Stripe until a shop has paid by check and asked for a card
- − Taking a cut of the shop’s accounts receivable
Risks we already named
Say them out loud
The import is labor
Bad as-builts eat the typical fee. Quote campus and fiction drawings at the high end, or walk away.
Shops ask for D-Tools
Say no. If they need a bid package, they already have a tool. We run the job they won.
They stop paying
Freeze. Do not argue in email. The plant file is still theirs if they come back.
We confuse the two bills
Never deposit a customer’s job check. Seats are Enlighten AR. Job invoices are the shop’s AR.
1–5 shops feel like a product company
They are not. That band is a tool for us and our neighbors. 20–40 Midwest shops is a line item. Do not staff for 20 until 5 have paid.
What's new
The living log is Changelog
Launch is the deadline, the gates, and the plan. What shipped lives on /changelog — not a second diary on this page.
Waukesha
Walk the mapped plant. Then we talk about the first building.
Mike Cobus · Enlighten Studios. Deadline Friday, October 30, 2026. The public timeline is here so a shop can see what is live. What shipped lives on Changelog. The checklist Mike runs lives inside Enlighten admin.