It depends on how quickly the business can generate a documented trend or pipeline; a single quarter of new contracts is rarely enough, so realistic timelines often run several months.
Give the growth story time to become documentable evidence
Overcoming a marginality concern is not primarily a paperwork exercise; it requires the business to actually generate evidence that a trend or pipeline exists, which takes real time to develop. A scaffolding company that signs one new contract this month has a data point, not yet a documented trend, and an adjudicator weighing marginality will look for a pattern rather than a single recent event.
Investors in this position should plan on a preparation window of several months rather than weeks, using that time to secure additional signed work, track revenue against the prior comparable period, and refine the business plan's projections as real contracts replace estimates. Filing before this evidence has had time to accumulate risks presenting the same thin owner-support snapshot the marginality standard exists to screen out.