She meant "calendar years", it's more like 1.5.
The timeline, if i understood it correctly, is:
- Clio quits her dayjob and goes fulltime at the end of November 2023.
- Literally on the same day Fishman slides into her DMs to phasebeg.
- Initial agreement is reached pretty quickly, however that leaves them in a weird spot with Euphoria debuts, Kaleido debuts and Sakana not wanting to ACCELERATE too much.
- As a result, for a while, Clio is stuck in a weird limbo where she is supposed to join a company eventually, but also needs to grow her own brand to earn income as an indie. At the time, she doesn't know if anyone except Sakana was even aware of their agreement.
- This goes on presumably until pretty late into 2024, where she is finally revealed and "officially" joins the basement.