legal, united-states, lean-startup, s-corporationHere is my backstory. I created an S corp 4 years ago. Soon after getting everything squared away I officially opened for business. My original plan was to provide some creative services online. After 2 months of inactivity I, for lack of a better term, abandoned the startup. About a year after that I pivoted and began research regarding possibly providing a new type of service, but that was left behind too without ever opening for business. So 2-3 years have passed with it sitting inactive, but I’m finally going to “reopen” with a new idea. In those 2-3 years I have matured greatly and have strong evidence that I’ll begin generating strong revenue in the next 2-3 months.
My question is when is my “startup anniversary”? Should I consider that my business paperwork filing date, when I first opened for business 4 years ago, or my most recent “launch date”?
Also, is there anything else I should worry about down the road? For example if I am interviewed about the company or seek fundinf what should I say about the “early years”, that I wasn’t commited?
Some other facts:
As far as my knowledge goes, legally your company started existing with you filing the paperwork and getting it approved.
However, you could set the “birth” time of the company to the reopening. But without knowing all the details what your company does and what you sell it is not possible to give you a 100% right answer and, in my opinion, the start date of your company (you could maybe call it “GoLive”) can be any date you want, for example your recent launch date.
If asked about the early time, you can simply say that you had an idea, but after opening the company you noticed that you are missing a detailed plan how to run it etc., but after making up your mind in the last year you are now ready to start the company with full commitment.
Best Regards!
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