The founding date shouldn't be when the website first launched, or when they incorporated (though both are good minimums). The founding date is when the founde

The founding date shouldn't be when the website first launched, or when they incorporated (though both are good minimums). The founding date is when the founders got together and starting working on the idea full time. This is a pet peeve of mine because often in the first year not much happens. For Uber, it seemed like they were building the app and preparing for a private beta. This doesn't mean the company didn't exist before the beta was launched or the app existed. This is important because many founders who don't know any better think that if their company isn't crushing it after a few months then they are doing something wrong. It takes time to get stuff going, and when looking retrospectively if you skip over this time it creates a misleading timeline of how successful companies are created.