The capital must be invested, or actively in the process of being invested, when Form I-526 is filed, and it must then be sustained for at least two years. Set up the agency, transfer the funds and begin spending on the enterprise before filing, with the estate trail complete.
Invest, document, file, sustain
The petition is filed after the investment, not before, so the sequence is: receive the estate distribution and assemble its documentation; form the U.S. enterprise; transfer the capital into its account and commit it to the agency's startup, whether by paying for premises, licensing, equipment and initial payroll or by holding it in the enterprise's account under a plan that commits it; then file Form I-526 with the business plan and the source-of-funds file. Under the 2022 reform law the capital must remain invested for at least two years, and the jobs must be created within the period the rules allow after that investment.
After approval the couple complete consular processing, enter as conditional residents, and she can then work in the agency herself. Two years later, Form I-829 is filed with evidence of the sustained investment and the ten jobs. Because a direct case has no sponsor managing the timeline, keep a written schedule of every deadline from the estate closing onward.