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Make a Company History Timeline

A company history timeline shows how an organization got to where it is today: when it was founded, what it launched, who led it, where it moved and the moments that changed its direction. Companies make one for an anniversary, for the About page of their website, for new employees during onboarding, or to open a presentation about where the business is heading next.

What to include

Start with the events you can date, and group them into a few themes:

  • The company itself. The founding, name changes, funding rounds, mergers and acquisitions.
  • Products. Each major launch, and the ones that were retired.
  • People. Founders, each CEO's time in charge, and other leaders people will recognize.
  • Places. The first office, new locations and expansion into new countries.
  • Recognition. Awards, big customers and the headcount or revenue marks worth celebrating.

Resist listing everything. A reader should be able to take in the whole story at a glance, so keep each theme to the events that actually changed something.

Give each theme its own layer

Put each theme on its own layer, such as "Company", "Products" and "People", so readers can follow one thread at a time. Each layer can have its own color.

Click the Add Layer button above the timeline to create each one. If you started from the Simple layout, its empty "Events" layer is removed when you add your first layer. The other layouts start with two or three layers called "Layer", which you can rename by clicking a name in the list below the timeline. When you add an event, choose its theme from the Layer menu.

Give an event an end date when it covers a period, such as a CEO's time in charge or the years a product was on sale, and Preceden draws it as a bar. For anything still going, such as the current CEO's tenure, set the end date to Present and the bar runs up to today.

Dates from the early years

Records from a company's first years are often thin. Preceden accepts a year on its own, such as 1987, or a month and year, such as June 1987. You can also enter a decade such as 1990s, which Preceden splits into 1990 to 1999 when the event is created. Supported Date Formats covers the rest.

When a date is an estimate, check Approx. next to it in the event dialog, and the timeline shows it as approximate.

Mark the turning points

A few dates matter more than the rest, like the founding, an acquisition or the launch that made the company's name. For those, open More Options in the event dialog and check Make this event a milestone. Preceden draws a milestone as a vertical line across the full height of the timeline, so you can see what every other theme looked like at that moment.

Add photos and sources

A company history is much more engaging with pictures. You can add an image to any event, such as the first storefront, an old product photo or the original logo.

Every event also has a Notes field that accepts Markdown, including links. Use it for a sentence of context, or to record where a date came from, such as an annual report or a press release.

Sharing it

How you share it depends on where people will see it:

On our Pro plan you can also add your company's logo, which appears above the timeline in PDF exports and on shared links.

The free plan allows up to 10 events on each timeline, which is enough to sketch out the main milestones. A full company history usually needs more, and our paid plans lift the event limit.

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