Commercial readiness does not establish immigration work permission.
Separate launch readiness from authorization
Review the actual intended activities and status. Signed agreements and provider availability do not themselves authorize the applicant’s U.S. work.
Pre-launch readiness can be shown through binding commitments — lease, supply contract, equipment orders, licence applications, staffing plan — rather than completed sales. Prelaunch enterprises can qualify where capital is committed and at risk, operations are genuinely ready, and commitments are credible, so waiting for first sales is not a universal rule. Only then are the purchase agreement, the escrow arrangement and the source-of-funds file ready, and only then does the published consular processing time begin to matter. A seller's preferred closing date is commercial pressure, and it cannot convert collateral over enterprise assets into qualifying capital, so a timetable with no room to redraft is a risk to the transaction as much as to the application. Keep the buyer's own permission to work in the United States on its own track as well, because a closing date is not an authorization date and no clause in a purchase agreement can make it one.