Article

What happens on the discovery call

By TrustPast

Published October 30, 2026 · Updated October 31, 2026

Somewhere between applying and signing, an owner ends up on a call with micro1. It’s the first time a person from the buyer asks about your records in detail, and the first time you get to ask back. This page goes through that one call: what micro1 says it’s for, what to have ready, which questions to put to micro1, and what comes after it.

What micro1 says the call is for

micro1 describes the call in one sentence on its referral page. “Qualified companies are invited to connect with a Data Partnership Manager to discuss their data, licensing terms, and next steps.”

That sentence holds three topics. Your data, meaning what you keep, where, and for how long. Licensing terms, meaning the conditions under which micro1 would use it. Next steps, meaning what happens if both sides want to carry on.

micro1’s data partnerships page lists four steps in its process. The first is “Discovery & pricing.” micro1 describes it this way: “We identify licensable datasets across your business and tailor an offer based on the nature, scale, and value of your data.”

micro1 doesn’t say in so many words that the call and the discovery step are the same thing. In our reading, the call is where discovery starts. It’s the first point in the published sequence where someone from micro1 talks with the company about its datasets, and the step after it is contracting. The FAQ on the same page calls this stretch “partnership discussions.”

So the call has two jobs. micro1 finds out what you have that it could license. You find out on what terms, and whether you’re comfortable with them.

Apply & License Your Data

Where the call sits in the sequence

The call doesn’t come first. micro1’s referral page says the company’s point of contact sets up a profile on micro1’s company portal and “completes data manifest.” Then: “Once the company registers and completes its profile and data manifest, our team reviews the application.”

micro1’s data partnerships page adds an initial interview at this stage. It says the interview “helps assess whether the company and its data are a good fit for the program.” Our page on what happens after you apply covers those early stages in order, and what happens in the initial interview covers the interview itself.

Only “qualified companies” are invited to the call. So by the time you’re on it, micro1 has already read your manifest and judged that a partnership might fit. In our reading, that changes the tone. The call isn’t a screening. It’s a working conversation about scope.

After the call, micro1’s referral page says: “If both parties agree to proceed, the company moves through contracting, data transfer, and data approval.” Note the words “both parties.” The call is also where you decide.

The four published steps, from discovery through to payment, are laid out on how the data partnership works.

What micro1 doesn’t publish about the call

Owners like to know how long a meeting runs and who’ll be in it. micro1 doesn’t say.

It doesn’t publish the length of the call. It doesn’t name anyone attending beyond the Data Partnership Manager. It doesn’t publish an agenda, a list of questions, or whether there’s one call or several.

It doesn’t publish a timeline either. The referral page says “There is no guaranteed timeframe between application and partnership completion.” It says timelines vary with “the company’s eligibility, the complexity of its data, legal requirements, and how quickly it completes each step.”

That last part is the only piece of the clock in your hands. A company that arrives with its answers ready doesn’t slow its own step down.

micro1 also doesn’t publish whether a price is named on the call. Its step is called discovery and pricing. Its payout page says the “Final payout is determined based on data sources, volume, quality, access terms, and due diligence.” In our reading, due diligence comes later than a first conversation, so don’t expect a final figure on the call. If you want to know when a number will be put in writing, ask.

What to have ready: the records

micro1 says what it looks for. “We are looking for data that reflects how work is actually performed within an organization.” It names standard operating procedures, process documentation, internal knowledge bases, workflows and templates. On eligibility it lists “internal communications, SOPs, project histories, CRM records, support tickets, and other business documentation.”

A trade company’s version of that list sounds different, so translate before the call. Our own advice is to name the records in your words, then say what each one shows about the work.

Estimates and bids. Every quote, the revisions, and the notes on why the number moved.
Job files and work orders. The scope, the crew notes, the daily logs, the punch list.
Change orders. The request, the price, the back-and-forth, and what was agreed.
Service tickets. The complaint, the diagnosis, the parts used, and the follow-up visit.
Internal email and chat. The threads where an estimator asked a foreman how long a job would take.
Written procedures. The safety manual, the start-up checklist, the way you train a new hire.

What makes a record useful is the reasoning left in it. micro1’s October announcement says real business operations “involve incomplete information, competing priorities and exceptions that require judgment.” A bid file with three revisions and a note on each one carries that judgment. A clean final invoice doesn’t.

Our cornerstone page on what data buyers want from a trade business sorts a contractor’s files into what counts and what doesn’t.

What to have ready: the years

micro1’s payout estimator asks “How many years of data do you have?” and explains it as “Typically the number of years you’ve been in business.”

Your real answer is usually shorter and messier. The company may be twenty years old, but the estimating files might start when you bought the software. The email might only go back to the last server move.

Before the call, write down two dates for each kind of record. The oldest year you can actually open, and the year the records became complete. Those are often different.

micro1 says “There’s no fixed minimum number of files, documents, or terabytes.” It adds that it evaluates “the historical depth, breadth, quality, and relevance of the available data.” It also says “Companies with several years of records across multiple business systems are generally a stronger fit.”

So depth counts, and gaps are worth naming early. A gap you mention on the call is a detail. A gap discovered after contracting is a problem. Our page on how many years of records count goes further into dating your archive.

What to have ready: the systems

The phrase “across multiple business systems” is micro1’s. It’s worth taking literally.

List every system that holds records of the work, past and present. For a mid-sized trade company, that is often:

the estimating program, and the one before it;
the field service or job management system;
the accounting package, for the job costing behind each estimate;
the shared drive or file server with the project folders;
email, and any team chat;
paper, if a lot of the early years still live in boxes.

For each one, note whether you can still export from it. A retired system you can’t open is still worth mentioning. It’s just worth less until someone can get the data out. Our page on whether old systems count after you switched tools goes through that case.

micro1’s step three says “You securely transfer your data through our APIs or other approved methods.” The call is a fair time to ask which methods suit the systems you’ve just listed.

What to have ready: who owns client work

In our reading, this is the item to settle before the call, because a contract can’t license files the company doesn’t control.

micro1 says “Companies retain ownership of their underlying data.” That covers your company’s records. It doesn’t settle what your clients own under their contracts. Design drawings supplied by an architect, a facility owner’s equipment schedules, plans marked confidential by a general contractor: those may not be yours to license.

Our own advice: before the call, pull the contracts for your largest clients and look for confidentiality and ownership clauses. You don’t need a legal opinion yet. You need to know which project folders have a question mark on them.

Then say so on the call. “These forty projects have client confidentiality terms, and we’d leave them out” is a sentence that makes the scope conversation faster. Our page on client-owned work and NDAs sets out what to look for.

Who to put on the call

micro1 publishes one requirement about the people. “Company representatives must also be able to communicate with the micro1 team in English throughout the partnership and onboarding process.”

Beyond that, it’s your choice. Our advice is two people. The one who can say yes, usually the owner. And the one who knows where every file lives, usually the office manager, the operations manager or whoever runs the field service system.

The owner can answer questions about terms. The second person can answer “how far back do the service tickets go?” without guessing. A wrong guess on the call becomes a wrong line in the scope.

Have one of them take notes. micro1’s answers on the call are what you’ll want to see again in the agreement.

The questions worth asking micro1

micro1 publishes a fair amount about how it handles company records. The call is where you ask how each published point applies to yours. Every question below is drawn from something micro1 states in public, so you’re asking it to confirm its own words, not to invent new terms.

Who can see the records? micro1 says “access is restricted to a limited number of authorized team members.” It also says “employees with access to data systems use company-managed devices.” Ask how many people, in which roles. More on this in who at the buyer can see the data.

Who are the end buyers? micro1 says “Your data is licensed exclusively to labs and enterprises based in the U.S. and allied countries.” Ask whether that line will appear in your agreement.

How are names taken out? micro1 says “Personal and identifying information is removed or transformed before your data is shared with third parties.” It adds that some datasets “may undergo synthetic rewrites that preserve workflow structure while reducing direct ties to original records.” Ask which of those would apply to your estimates and service tickets. Our page on how de-identification works shows what each approach does to a record.

Is there a resale limit? micro1’s contracting step includes “a commitment not to resell or distribute your data until personal and identifying information has been anonymized.” Ask to see that wording in the draft.

Will our records be kept apart? micro1 says “Your data is kept separate from other companies’ data.” Elsewhere it says customer data runs “through isolated pipelines that prevent it from being commingled with other engagements.” Ask how that separation is checked.

When is it deleted? micro1 says “Raw data is deleted according to an agreed schedule.” It also says “deletion requests are honored according to the terms of the engagement.” Ask what period micro1 usually proposes, and how you’ll be told it’s done. See whether the data can be deleted later.

Can we see it before it’s used? micro1 says “companies have the opportunity to review representative samples before use.” Ask how many samples, and how long you’ll have to look.

What is excluded? micro1 doesn’t publish a list of records it won’t take. Its process starts with identifying “licensable datasets,” which implies some aren’t. Ask directly which of your record types it would leave out, and say which ones you want left out.

What to listen for in the answers

The best answers are specific. A number of people, a number of months, a named way of transferring files.

If an answer is “that’s covered in the agreement,” that’s fair. Write down the question and check the draft when it arrives. micro1 says its contracting step establishes “clear licensing terms.” Clear terms should answer every question on your list.

Our own advice: don’t decide anything on the call that you’d want counsel to read first. The call is for information. Signing comes later, and it’s a separate step for a reason.

What happens after the call

micro1’s referral page says: “If both parties agree to proceed, the company moves through contracting, data transfer, and data approval.”

In the four steps on its data partnerships page, that’s contracting, then delivery and acceptance. In delivery, “You securely transfer your data through our APIs or other approved methods. We review the data for completeness.”

On timing after transfer, micro1 is specific. “Once your company transfers its data, micro1 has 30 days to review and approve it.” After approval, “we’ll ask your company to submit an invoice, and payment will be made within 30 days of invoicing.”

What micro1 doesn’t publish is the gap between the call and a draft agreement. Ask on the call when you should expect to hear back, and from whom.

If you decide not to go ahead, no files have been shared. By the call, micro1 has your profile and data manifest; the records themselves stay where they are until you sign and transfer. Our page on whether licensing your records costs anything counts the time the steps take on your side.

What this means for an electrical contractor

Take a hypothetical electrical contractor with 60 people. It’s our own example, not a case micro1 has published. Twenty-two years in business. Commercial fit-outs, a service department, and some low-voltage work.

Before the call, the office manager writes one page. Estimating files back to 2009, when the company bought its current program, with every revision kept. Project folders on the file server back to 2006, each with the submittals, the RFIs, the change orders and the closeout. The field service system since 2015, around 4,000 tickets a year. Email back to 2012. Paper bid sets before 2006, in storage.

The same page names what stays out. Two hospital projects under client confidentiality terms. The HR folder. The payroll exports. Anything from the bank.

On the call, the owner describes the work and the office manager answers the dates. The Data Partnership Manager asks about the systems. The owner asks about deletion, the samples and who sees the files, and the office manager writes the answers down.

What micro1 would be looking at, if the fit holds, is the reasoning in those files. The panel-upgrade bid that rose after the site walk, and the note on why. The change order for the extra circuits the tenant added in week six, and the emails that settled the price. The service call for the breaker that kept tripping, where the first tech replaced the breaker and the second found a shared neutral.

None of that needs the tenant’s name. All of it needs to stay as it was written.

Want to see what range a company like that sits in? Our estimate asks five questions.

What is never included

micro1’s own words on protection are short. “We protect sensitive information through data anonymization and secure handling.” It says the data is “de-identified before sharing.” micro1 doesn’t publish a fixed list of records it excludes.

The core of it, in plain terms: customer names and payment details are never the point. The client’s name on the estimate is not what is wanted. Nor is the card number on the invoice, or the balance on an account. What is wanted is how an estimate became a job, how a change order was settled, and how a repair was diagnosed. The names come out before use; the shape of the work stays.

The rest of this section is TrustPast’s own advice, not micro1’s guidance. Expect these to stay out of scope unless micro1 tells you otherwise: attorney-client privileged records, health information, payment-card and financial-account details, Social Security numbers, minors’ data, biometric data, and classified or export-controlled material. If any of your records sit near those lines, raise it on the call. Our page on what is never included goes through each one.

Two more points of our own. Don’t scrub records by hand before the call. micro1 says a company doesn’t need to anonymize its data before transferring it, and hand-scrubbing tends to strip the context that gives a record its value. And keep client-owned work out unless the contract says otherwise.

Our page on how it’s safe covers handling from start to finish.

Where we fit

We, TrustPast, explain the process and give a range with our estimate. We’re not on the call. We never see your files, your manifest or your agreement. micro1 pays us a referral fee if a deal completes. You pay us nothing.

Before the call, three things are worth an hour: the one-page list of records and years, the client contracts checked, and the questions above printed out. Ready to start?

TrustPast

Questions and answers

What is the call with micro1 for?

micro1's referral page says qualified companies “are invited to connect with a Data Partnership Manager to discuss their data, licensing terms, and next steps.” The first of micro1's four steps is discovery and pricing, where it says “We identify licensable datasets across your business and tailor an offer based on the nature, scale, and value of your data.”

How long is the call, and who joins from micro1?

micro1 doesn't publish either. Its referral page names a Data Partnership Manager and nobody else. It also says “There is no guaranteed timeframe between application and partnership completion.”

Do we need to send files before or during the call?

micro1 doesn't say it asks for files on the call. Its published order is the profile and data manifest, a review, the call, then “contracting, data transfer, and data approval.” Our own advice is to describe the records on the call and send nothing until the scope is agreed in writing.

Should we strip customer names out before the call?

No. Asked whether a company needs to anonymize its data before transferring it, micro1 answers: “No, micro1 has processes for de-identifying and transforming sensitive information.” Ask on the call how that's done for your records, and check it later in the samples micro1 says you can review.

What protections can we ask about on the call?

micro1 publishes four points it confirms with the company before any participation: U.S. and allied buyers only, data kept separate from other companies’ data, de-identified before it’s shared with third parties, and raw data deleted on an agreed schedule. The call is where you ask how each one applies to your records.

What happens after the call?

micro1's referral page says “If both parties agree to proceed, the company moves through contracting, data transfer, and data approval.” Its data partnerships page says it then has 30 days to review and approve transferred data, and pays within 30 days of the invoice.