1. H1B petitions filed under regular processing can take 2-6 months for adjudication.
2. Number of employees is not an issue, as long as the required fee is paid (companies with 50+ employees in US and 50% of the employees are H1B aliens an additional $2000 has to be paid while petition filing). However, USCIS will be scrutinizing smaller companies thoroughly on their long term stability, financial state, etc.
3. EVC (Employer-Vendor-Client) - in this model, there are multiple layers involved and USCIS might ask for documents that clearly state the employee-employer relationship, etc.