Article

Do you need 30 employees to qualify?

By TrustPast

Updated October 26, 2026

The number comes up early when an owner hears about licensing records. An owner hears that a buyer pays for old estimates and work orders, then hears “30 employees”, and wonders which side of it the company sits on. Some stop reading right there. This page settles one question: does a company need 30 employees, what exactly does micro1 say, and how should you count?

We fetched micro1’s pages on 26 October 2026 and quote them as they read that day. Where a line is our own reading or our own advice, we say so.

The short answer

Yes, for micro1, 30 is the published line. Its company referral page lists “30+ employees” as a company requirement. Its answer on eligibility says: “We’re looking for established companies with 30+ full-time employees, mature business operations, and substantial historical operational data.”

Two things sit next to that line. micro1 doesn’t define who counts as an employee. And the line is about people, not about the amount of records. On records, micro1 says: “There’s no fixed minimum number of files, documents, or terabytes.”

So the number is a door, not a price. Reaching it is one of the conditions micro1 publishes, next to mature business operations and substantial historical data. What the company is paid depends on the files behind the door, and micro1 decides both.

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Where micro1 writes the number

The line appears in more than one place, with slightly different wording each time. It helps to see them side by side.

The enterprise card. micro1’s company referral page describes an “Enterprise Data Partnership” as an “Operational data partnership using existing business documentation and operational datasets.” Under company requirements, it lists four lines: “30+ employees”, “US and Western markets”, “English” and “All industries”.

The closed-company card. On the same page, the “Defunct Company Data Partnership” card reads: “We are acquiring data from companies that are no longer operating.” Its first company requirement is the same: “30+ employees”.

The eligibility answer. On micro1’s data partnerships page, the question “What kinds of companies are eligible for the program?” gets the answer quoted above. It names “30+ full-time employees”. The same sentence appears on the referral page under “What types of companies make great referrals?”

The payout estimator. micro1’s payout page asks “How many employees does your company have?” before it asks anything else. It then asks “How many years of data do you have?” and “Where is your company headquartered?”

Read together, the number is consistent: 30. The word “full-time” appears in the eligibility answer and not on the cards. In our reading, that small gap is where most of the counting questions come from.

A line about people, not about paper

Owners often read the 30 as a size test for the records. It isn’t. micro1 is explicit that it sets no volume floor: “There’s no fixed minimum number of files, documents, or terabytes.” Then it says what it does look at: “We evaluate the historical depth, breadth, quality, and relevance of the available data.”

It adds one more line on fit: “Companies with several years of records across multiple business systems are generally a stronger fit.”

As our own reading, the headcount and the records answer two different questions. The headcount asks whether the company is the kind micro1 works with. The records ask what the company’s files are worth. A 31-person company with two years of thin folders clears the first and struggles with the second. A 60-person company with eighteen years of estimates, job notes and service tickets clears both.

micro1’s eligibility answer also asks for “mature business operations”. It doesn’t define the phrase. In our reading, it describes a company that has run long enough to have a settled way of doing things, and has written it down.

Who counts toward the thirty

micro1’s pages don’t say how to count part-time staff, seasonal crews or subcontractors. What follows is our own advice, not micro1’s definition.

Start with the payroll. Everyone the company pays as an employee is the honest base: office staff, estimators, project managers, technicians, installers, drivers, apprentices. Add the owners if they work in the business.

Then mark who is part-time. micro1’s eligibility answer says “full-time employees”. If a third of your count is part-time, micro1 should know that, and it should hear it from you.

Then mark who is seasonal. A landscaping or roofing company may run 50 people in July and 20 in January. Both numbers are true. Give both, with the months.

Leave subcontractors and staffing-agency workers out of the count, or list them on their own line. They work on your jobs, but they aren’t your employees. Their notes may still sit in your job files, which is a separate question about the records.

Our estimate counts everyone: office, field crews, drivers and part-timers, now and at peak. Our glossary entry on headcount sets out how. That keeps the estimate simple. It also means our count can be higher than the full-time number micro1 asks about, so treat our routing as ours.

Now or at peak

Plenty of companies have shrunk. A general contractor that ran 70 people before 2020 may run 25 today. The files from the big years are still on the server.

micro1’s pages don’t say whether the count means today or the company’s largest year. Its estimator asks “How many employees does your company have?”, in the present tense. Its closed-company card asks for “30+ employees” from companies that are no longer operating. As our own reading, a company that is no longer operating has few or no staff left, so for a closed company the count most likely means the headcount it had while it ran.

Our estimate asks for both numbers, people now and people at peak, and routes by the larger. That is our method. As our own advice, give micro1 both, and say which years each covers. The records from the 70-person years were written by 70 people. That is worth saying plainly.

If the company has closed or is closing, read our page for closed companies. The questions there are different, starting with who can sign for the company now.

Why a buyer draws the line where the writing starts

micro1 doesn’t say why it chose 30. Here is our own explanation, from the trades we know.

A company of eight runs on the owner’s head. The owner walks the job, prices it on a pad, and tells the crew what to do. Little of that reaches a file.

Somewhere past twenty people, that stops working. The owner can’t walk every job, so an estimator does, and the estimate has to be written so the owner can check it. Three crews go out at once, so the work order has to say what was found and what was done. A service manager has to see why the same customer called back twice. The company starts writing things down because it has to.

At 30 or more, that writing has usually gone on for years, and through more than one person and more than one system. That fits what micro1 says it wants: “data that reflects how work is actually performed within an organization.” Its October announcement puts it another way: “Real business operations involve incomplete information, competing priorities and exceptions that require judgment.” A company of thirty people faces those exceptions every week, and leaves a note each time.

That is also why a small company with careful records isn’t worthless. It is simply a different case. The section on smaller companies below covers it.

What thirty people leave behind in the files

A headcount of 30 matters because of what that many people write down. It is worth being exact about what a buyer wants from those files, and what it doesn’t.

The records are de-identified before use. micro1’s October announcement says it “uses de-identified company data”. Its data partnerships page says “Personal and identifying information is removed or transformed before your data is shared with third parties.” Asked whether a company must anonymize its data first, micro1 answers: “No, micro1 has processes for de-identifying and transforming sensitive information.”

So customer names and payments are never what is wanted. A homeowner’s address and a deposit cheque teach nothing about how a trade is run. What is wanted is how the work was done:

How an estimate became a job. The walk-through notes, the first quote, the revised quote after the client cut the scope, and the signed version.
How a change order was settled. The crew opened a wall and found rot. The change order shows the new scope and the new price. The email thread shows the argument and the compromise.
How a repair was diagnosed. A furnace kept locking out. The technician checked the filter, then the flame sensor, then the pressure switch hose, and wrote down what failed and why.

Thirty people produce a great many of those chains every year. Our cornerstone page on what data buyers actually want from a trade business goes through them trade by trade. Our page on how de-identification works shows what comes out of each record and what stays.

Close to the line

The hard cases are the companies at 26, 29 or 33. Here is our own advice for each.

Just under, all year. A company of 27 full-time people is under micro1’s published line. Don’t round it up. micro1’s estimator asks for the headcount first, and micro1’s team reviews each company before any partnership. Run our estimate instead and see which programme it names.

Just over, with part-timers. A company of 33 where eight people work part-time sits on the line in one reading and over it in another. Give the full count and the split. micro1 decides.

Over in summer, under in winter. A seasonal company that peaks at 40 and drops to 18 should give both numbers and the months. As our own reading, the busy season usually leaves the larger share of the files.

Over at peak, under now. Give both, with the years. As our own reading, the files from the larger years are the ones that show how the work was done at scale.

In every case, the honest number is the one to give. micro1 says “All companies must complete micro1’s qualification and evaluation process.” A count that doesn’t survive that process wastes everyone’s time, including yours.

If the company has fewer than 30 people

A company of 15 that has kept every estimate for twenty years has real records. Being under micro1’s published line is a fact about headcount, not about the value of the files. It is not a reason to throw anything away.

Our estimate asks how many people work at the company, now and at peak, and whether it is operating or closed. It also asks where the company is based, because that answer changes the routing too. It names the programme that fits the answers you give. Five questions, about two minutes, and you don’t have to work out from this page which programme applies.

The estimate gives our range, not an offer. The buyer it names prices each company after its own review.

What this means for an electrical contractor with 30 or more staff

Here is one company, as our own hypothetical: an electrical contractor with 38 people, two-thirds in the field, sixteen years in business. It does service calls for homes and tenant fit-outs for commercial landlords.

The count. 30 full-time electricians, apprentices and project staff. Five in the office. Three part-time estimators’ helpers. It gives micro1 the full 38 and the split.

The estimate chain. Its estimates and quotes for fit-outs carry takeoffs, line items, revisions and the note on why each price moved. A bid that went from a first number to a revised number after the landlord changed the lighting spec is an estimate becoming a job, step by step.

The change orders. The panel that turned out to be undersized once the tenant’s equipment list arrived. The change order shows the new scope, the price and who approved it. The email before it shows how the price was settled.

The service tickets. Its job files and work orders for service calls say what the customer reported, what was tested and what failed. “Breaker tripping under load, found loose neutral at the panel, retorqued and tested” is a diagnosis written while the work happened.

What it leaves out. The customer list, the card payments, the landlords’ own drawings where the contract says they belong to the landlord.

As our own reading, sixteen years of that, across a field service system, an estimating program and a shared drive, fits micro1’s line: “Companies with several years of records across multiple business systems are generally a stronger fit.” micro1 still prices it. Our page on what decides the price goes through the factors micro1 names.

What reaching thirty does not settle

Clearing the line is the start of the review, not the end of it.

micro1’s referral page describes what happens next. Once the company completes its profile and data manifest, micro1’s team reviews the application. “Qualified companies are invited to connect with a Data Partnership Manager to discuss their data, licensing terms, and next steps.” If both parties agree, “the company moves through contracting, data transfer, and data approval.” Its data partnerships page adds an initial interview before partnership discussions.

On timing, micro1 is direct: “Timelines vary depending on the company’s eligibility, the complexity of its data, legal requirements, and how quickly it completes each step.” It adds: “There is no guaranteed timeframe between application and partnership completion.”

On money, micro1’s referral page lists company compensation of “$100K-$2M+ for approved data packages” (indicative, not an offer). Its payout page says “Final payout is determined based on data sources, volume, quality, access terms, and due diligence.” Its data partnerships page says compensation “is determined based on the characteristics and value of the data being contributed.” Headcount opens the door, and those factors set the figure. Our page on how many years of records count covers the estimator’s second question.

micro1 is spending heavily on this. Its 9 October 2026 announcement describes “a commitment to spend $1 billion over the next 12 months acquiring and licensing enterprise operational data through our Company Data Partnerships program.” That is a reason to count your people carefully, not a reason to round up.

What is never included

micro1 doesn’t publish one fixed exclusion list. It says it protects “sensitive information through data anonymization and secure handling.” Its protection answer adds that “access is restricted to a limited number of authorized team members” and that companies “have the opportunity to review representative samples before use”.

What follows is our own advice, not micro1’s guidance. Keep these out unless micro1 agrees otherwise in writing: attorney-client privileged records, health information, payment-card and financial-account details, and Social Security numbers. Keep out minors’ data, biometric data, and classified or export-controlled material. Leave out anything a client owns under its contract with you.

None of these depends on headcount. A company of 300 keeps them out just as a company of 30 does. Our page on what is never included shows where they tend to hide in a trade company’s files. How it’s safe gives the short version of the protections.

Where we fit

We, TrustPast, explain where the line sits and give you a range with our estimate. The count we use is ours, and so is the range; neither is micro1’s decision. You apply to micro1 yourself, through the button below. micro1 pays us a referral fee. You pay us nothing, and we never see your files.

micro1’s answer on ownership is one line: “Companies retain ownership of their underlying data.” Whatever your headcount, the records stay yours. For the wider picture of the lane, read our page on companies with 30 or more staff, and for every published criterion in turn, who qualifies for the data partnership.

How many people did your company have in its busiest year?

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Questions and answers

Does micro1 require 30 employees?

Its company referral page lists “30+ employees” under company requirements, on both of its company partnership cards. Its eligibility answer says: “We’re looking for established companies with 30+ full-time employees, mature business operations, and substantial historical operational data.” micro1 decides at evaluation.

Do part-time staff and crews count toward the 30?

micro1’s pages don’t say. Its eligibility answer says “full-time employees”; its referral cards say “30+ employees”. Our estimate counts everyone, office and field, full-time and part-time. That is our method, not micro1’s definition, so give micro1 the real breakdown.

Is the 30 about headcount or about the amount of records?

Headcount. On records, micro1 says: “There’s no fixed minimum number of files, documents, or terabytes.” It adds: “We evaluate the historical depth, breadth, quality, and relevance of the available data.”

We had 45 people at our peak and have 22 now. Which number counts?

micro1’s pages don’t say. Its payout estimator asks “How many employees does your company have?” Our estimate asks for both and routes by the larger. As our own advice, tell micro1 both numbers and the years each covers.

Does reaching 30 mean micro1 will pay?

No. micro1 says: “All companies must complete micro1’s qualification and evaluation process.” It also says compensation “is determined based on the characteristics and value of the data being contributed.”

What if the company has fewer than 30 people?

Use our estimate. It asks how many people work at the company, now and at peak, and where it is based. It names the programme that fits the answers, so you don’t have to work it out from this page.