Lender not factoring startup income because biz not 2 yrs old?!

[Collin Emerson Miller]

I am looking to buy a property with a co-borrower and the main lender that we are working with is only counting my co-borrower's income and not mine for a reason that I don't see valid.  I am going to be looking for other lenders, but in the meantime, I wanted to get the opinion of the bigger pockets community on if this is reasonable or not. I will give the full situation below:

A few friends and I started a business about a year and a half ago which is doing quite well for being in the middle of a pandemic.  We just closed our seed round and have enough runway to last for about 2 years or so until we raise again.  My coborrower has been working in the same industry for 2 years and has enough history to justify a loan.  HOWEVER, apparently, because I have an ownership stake in my company, I need to have 2 years of payment history AT THE COMPANY, not including past work.  

Why is this necessary?  What if I just got hired at a startup without owning any of it? At least then my past work history would be valid?  What gives?  Thoughts?  Questions?

[Chris Mason]

If I'm fielding a question from a rando that cold called me and is asking me questions, then I'm focused on what I *know.*

I *know* that I can count self-employment income once that income appears on two years of tax returns.

I *might* be able to count self-employment income after a year and change. 

How do we turn a "might" into knowing for a fact? A full application, all paperwork, all tax returns (2 years), credit report, whole 9 yards. The below snip is from a file I have in the works, started it 2 days ago.

This person's loan will be approved, we will not need any appraisal, we will not need to document any assets at all, we only need to show the underwriter ONE year of tax returns (not two), and we will not need any reserves. 

Am I going to promise that to the person up-front after they called me out of the blue? Hell no! That was the best case outcome, and we had to finagle numbers and the like to achieve it. Instead, I'm going to give them general CONSERVATIVE information, encourage them to complete the application, and we can find out the answers once they have done it. That's why it's called a "complete" application. If you want a complete answer, we need a complete application... And, sometimes, you don't get those best case answers, that totally happens too, and words exciting your lips cannot change that, it's the totality of the last decade of one's credit history, one's down payment (purchase) or equity position (refi), all of it, together, viewed holistically through the lens of computer software.

If I tell that cold-caller "we might be able to count based on one year," what do you think they are going to do? They are going to start talking, rather than uploading the paperwork we need to actually answer that question, because they think the Borg Collective cares about the words they verbally state (no idea why they think that). So what's the point in telling them that? They need to upload their paperwork. Period, full stop. So the words that exit my lips will be those words which result in them being most likely to click upload buttons, rather than talk more. The talking is important, absolutely it matters to understand the client's goals, objectives, etc, but the uploading paperwork is more important.