TierLantern — Business Plan

What we're building

TierLantern is a B2B SaaS platform that helps defense contractors see supply chain disruption coming before it hits: a risk engine that scores every sub-tier supplier on transparent, explainable rules, an interactive dashboard that shows the reasons behind each score, and — after the MVP — continuous supplier monitoring that feeds procurement decisions.

On "AI-assisted" (decided by the owner, 2026-10-16): we do not call the product AI-assisted anywhere — not the product, not the product page, not a pitch — until a real model is generating the reasoning behind a score. For the MVP the scores are rules-based and fully explainable, with the weights visible so a procurement lead can argue with them. AI assistance is an upgrade we earn later, honestly, when a model is actually writing the rationale.

Who it's for

Beachhead (decided by the owner, 2026-10-16): the tier-2 and tier-3 suppliers sitting underneath the primes. Our customer is a tier-2 or tier-3 supplier that is itself being measured by its primes, and that manages its own sub-tier suppliers on spreadsheets today. Their pain is concrete: the primes won't tolerate a late lot, and one fragile sub-tier supplier — a sole-source machinist, a single forging house, a foreign magnet or connector supplier — is what turns into their missed delivery and their flow-down problem (AS9100, DFARS, ITAR-registered suppliers). They are also small enough to buy without a committee, which the primes are not.