{{ label }}
++ {{ value }} +
+{{ sub }}
+{{ b.label }}
++ None of this needs new invention. It needs + accounting — a practice five centuries + old, that the collective simply isn't using yet. +
++ The books always balance +
++ Assets + = + Liabilities + + + Equity +
++ Every event is a balanced move between + buckets — money always comes from somewhere and goes to somewhere. + That's double-entry, and it's what + makes the numbers impossible to fudge. +
++ Project Lantern is a hardware build + inside the collective. It raised a + {{ money(100000) }} seed round and + spent the next seven months turning that money into prototypes, a team, and the first + customers. +
++ We'll watch its books evolve — and at any moment, anyone can see exactly what the project + owns, owes, and is worth. +
+ +Net worth of the project
+{{ money(100000) }}
+day one — all cash, nothing spent yet
+ ++ Follow along: each slide is a real entry in a real ledger you can open afterwards. +
++ The seed cheque lands as cash (an + asset) matched by investor equity (their + stake). The books balance from the very first entry. +
+2026-01-15 · Seed round
+Assets:Bank +{{ money(100000) }}
+Equity:Investors −{{ money(100000) }}
++ But cash with no plan gets spent badly. The pitch promised a + budget — so we split it into buckets + before a single dollar moves. +
+Budgeted allocation
++ Now "can we afford this?" has an answer before the money is spent — not after. +
+Cash on hand, month by month
++ Salaries, rent, and materials draw the balance down each month — a predictable + burn of roughly + {{ money(9000) }}/month. +
++ Then in June the curve turns: the + first pre-orders arrive and money starts flowing in. +
++ The books don't just record the past — they show the trajectory. Anyone can see the + runway and when it starts to reverse. +
++ Intuition says spending {{ money(5000) }} makes the project {{ money(5000) }} poorer. + Accounting says otherwise — and that difference is the whole point. +
+ +Cash
+−{{ money(5000) }}
+Equipment
++{{ money(5000) }}
++ 2026-03-18 · one asset became another — not an expense. +
++ Net worth after the purchase +
+unchanged
++ The servers are a capital asset — + they still belong to the project. Cash went down; owned equipment went up by the same + amount. +
++ Contrast with a salary or the electric bill: that money is used up — a true + expense that does lower net worth. + Knowing which is which is how you tell investing from burning. +
++ In a collective, people aren't just staff — they lend, spend, and own. A person's balance + takes one of two shapes, and the books tell them apart automatically. +
+ ++ Liability = the collective owes you. A debt + to be repaid. +
++ Equity = you own a slice. A claim on future + profit. +
++ Raised {{ money(103000) }}, spent {{ money(54115) }} net building it — + {{ money(48885) }} net worth today, and the + books balance to the cent. +
++ Every one of these actions is just a double-entry booking underneath — the app is the friendly + face on the ledger. +
++ Trust, at the speed the collective actually moves. +
++ The whole Project Lantern story is a plain-text ledger in + Beancount — the same open-source + engine used to run real businesses. Open it in + Fava and you get balance sheets, + income statements, budgets, and every transaction, instantly. +
+ +
+
$ fava ledger/lantern.beancount
+# → open http://localhost:5000
++ The simplified visuals in this deck are the pitch. Fava is the proof underneath — nothing + here is hand-waved. +
+Seed raised
+{{ money(100000) }}
+Net worth today
+{{ money(48885) }}
++ Pat & Rayan can have Project Lantern — and the next project — running on this within + weeks. +
+ + Restart the walkthrough