As far as I can tell, the vision and values of the company have remained largely the same since its inception. The big missing piece was a product; although, even after the release, product-market fit still hasn't been completely established.

I think it would be wrong to just ignore the hard work put in during those first two years, even though there wasn't anything tangible to show for it, except for a few mockup and some broken code (which is currently not being used at all). I'd feel a little guilty if (let's say), the product takes off and the original co-founders received nothing because a new entity was formed even though the idea remains the same.