Article

What the application asks, question by question

By TrustPast

Updated November 4, 2026

Most owners open an application expecting a long questionnaire about their files. micro1’s company application is shorter than that, and plainer. It asks who you are, how big the company is, how long it has run, where its people and customers are, and which systems hold its records. This page goes through it question by question: what each asks, what the answer tells about your records, and how a trade owner answers it from what the office already keeps.

The short answer

The application comes in three parts. A work email to open the account. A company profile of thirteen fields. Then a data manifest that repeats some of the profile and adds the team, the customers and the systems.

micro1’s referral page names the last two. It says the company’s point of contact “sets up the company’s profile on the company portal” and “completes data manifest.” It also says “Once the company registers and completes its profile and data manifest, our team reviews the application.”

Nothing on the form asks for a file. Nothing asks for a customer’s name, a price or a payment. The manifest even says “No data sizes needed yet.” What it asks is the shape of the company and where its records live. Answer that well and the rest of the process has something solid to start from.

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Where we read the questions

micro1’s own pages don’t list the form’s questions. The form does. The “Get in touch” button on micro1’s data partnerships page opens micro1’s company registration. That is micro1’s public form, and the portal’s publicly served pages carry the questions; we read them without signing in.

We read them there on 3 November 2026, over plain HTTP, without signing up or signing in, and checked them again on 4 November 2026. We quote the labels and the help text word for word. Where a label uses a word our pages keep out, we describe it instead of quoting it. Forms change. If what you see differs from what is written here, the form wins.

Two parts sit beside the form, and they have their own pages. Before you start, what to prepare before applying covers the inventory. After you submit, what happens after you apply covers the interview, the call and the contract. This page is the form itself.

Step one: a work email

The first screen asks for one thing. “Your work email address,” with the example “example@company.com.”

The heading reads “Welcome to micro1’s company data partnership portal.” The line under it says “Create an account with your company email to access your workspace.” A note explains why: “For security and account verification, please sign up with your company or professional email address.”

So use the company’s domain. An owner who runs everything from a personal address should still sign up with the company one. The address on the account is the address micro1 follows up with. The manifest says so later, next to the email field: “From your account — this is who we’ll follow up with.”

There’s a choice to make here, and it’s not on the form. The person who opens the account becomes the contact. Pick the person who knows where the records live, not the person who happens to have a free afternoon. In a 60-person contractor that’s often the operations manager. The owner signs later.

After sign-up, micro1 confirms the account and adds a plain line: “Your account is set up. Our team is reviewing your access request and will notify you by email once it’s approved.” micro1 doesn’t say how long that review takes.

The company profile: who you are

The profile opens with “Company overview.” The first six fields are about the company’s name and the person filling it in.

Company legal name. The name on the registration, not the trading name on the vans. A roofing outfit known by its owner’s surname may be a numbered LLC on paper. Use the legal one. It’s the name a contract would carry.

Company website. The address of the company’s site. If the company has closed and the site is down, give the address it used.

Your first name, your last name and your role. The role field’s example is “e.g. CEO.” Write what you actually do. “Operations manager” tells micro1 it’s talking to someone who knows the systems. “Owner” tells it it’s talking to someone who can decide.

Phone number. A number that reaches the contact. The form says “Enter a phone number” if you leave it blank, so it’s required.

None of this is about the records. It’s about who answers for them. That’s worth getting right, because micro1 says “Companies must register and complete their own applications through the referral link.” Nobody else can fill this in for you.

Where the company is, and what it does

Three fields place the company.

Headquarters country. A list of countries. micro1 publishes who it is looking for: “We’re currently prioritizing US companies, followed by other Western markets.” It also says current demand is strongest for companies in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada. Give the real answer. A company headquartered elsewhere “may still be considered,” in micro1’s words.

Industry. A free-text field with the example “fintech, dev tools, healthcare…” Those examples aren’t trades. Don’t let that put you off. micro1’s referral page lists “All industries” under its company requirements. Write the trade in plain words: “commercial roofing,” “residential HVAC service and replacement,” “electrical contracting.” The narrower the answer, the more it tells the reader what kind of records sit behind it.

Product description. The prompt is “Briefly, what does the company/product do?” A trade company doesn’t have a product in the software sense. It has work. Describe the work, the customers by type, and the volume. “We install and service heating and cooling systems for homes and light commercial buildings. About 4,000 service calls and 600 replacements a year.” Two sentences that name the kind of job tell more than a paragraph of slogans.

How big and how old

The next three fields size the company.

Company headcount. The example is “e.g. 100.” micro1’s eligibility line reads “established companies with 30+ full-time employees.” Our advice is to give the full-time count on today’s payroll, not the summer peak. The manifest asks for the peak separately, as we’ll see. If you’re close to the line, who qualifies for the data partnership goes through micro1’s published bar.

Year active (Start year). A drop-down of years. The list we read went back to 1970. Pick the year the company started trading. This one number does a lot of work. micro1 says companies “with several years of records across multiple business systems are generally a stronger fit.” The start year is the outer edge of what the company could hold. Your records may start later, and the manifest asks about that separately.

Company LinkedIn page. The company’s page on the professional network, or a box to tick: “Our company doesn’t have a LinkedIn page.” If the company doesn’t have one, tick the box and move on. The form asks for one or the other, and either is a complete answer.

Company current status

The last question before the description is the company’s status. There are three answers, each with a line of its own.

Active: “Operating, no plans to shut down.”
Winding down: “Stopping operations within 6 months.”
Defunct: “No longer operating.”

This question matters more than its size suggests. micro1’s referral page describes a separate partnership for closed companies: “We are acquiring data from companies that are no longer operating.” So a company that has stopped trading isn’t turned away at the door. It answers “Defunct” and carries on.

The manifest adds a rule for that answer. “A defunct company can’t be active through the present. Pick the last year it operated.” A closed contractor gives two years, the first and the last. If you’re winding down, say so. Six months is short, and the people who know where the records are may not be around much longer.

The data manifest: the same company, in more detail

The manifest is the second half. micro1’s referral page puts it inside the application: the review starts once the company “completes its profile and data manifest.” Its steps are titled “Primary contact,” “Company details,” “Company operations” and “Proposed data package.”

The first two steps repeat the profile, with small changes. The contact’s name, email and “Title / role.” The legal name, website, “Industry / vertical,” the LinkedIn page, the status and the product description. One field is new: “Years active,” with both a start year and an end year. If you filled in the profile honestly, this part takes two minutes.

The other two steps are new. They describe the people and the records, and they’re where an owner’s answers start to say something about the files.

Team and customers

The “Company operations” step asks about the workforce and the customers.

Current headcount. The same figure as the profile, today’s count.

Full-time desk employees. This field is worth a second look in a trade company. It asks for the people at desks, not the crews. A 70-person plumbing contractor might have 50 people in vans and 20 in the office: estimators, dispatchers, project managers, accounts. The desk count tells the reader how many people write the estimates, the dispatch notes and the emails. Those are the people whose work leaves a written trail.

Peak desk employees. The highest the office has been. A company that had 30 at desks in 2019 and 20 now has had more writers in its history than its current count suggests. Give the honest peak, and a year if you know it.

Team regions. “Where is your team based?” The instruction reads: “Select every region where current employees are based, then set the approximate share for each. Estimates are fine. The total must equal 100%.” The regions on offer are the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand, and other regions. Most trade companies answer with one region at 100%.

Customer regions. “Where are your customers based?” The instruction is the same, with two words more: “Select every region you have (or had) customers in.” Again, rough shares that add up to 100%.

Notice what the customer question doesn’t ask. It doesn’t ask who the customers are. It asks where they are, by region, as a percentage. That’s the only question about customers on the whole form.

The proposed data package

The last step is about the records themselves. It asks three things, and none of them needs a file.

Overall date range covered. “The span of time the proposed data covers, across all sources.” A start year and an end year. This is different from the years the company has been active. A contractor founded in 1994 may have job files only from 2008, when the office stopped using carbon-copy work orders. Give the range the records actually cover, across every system together. How to count years across a change of software is on how many years of records count.

Language percentage of proposed data package. “Rough language mix of the data you’re proposing to include,” with the example “e.g. English 80%, Spanish 20%.” Be honest here. If the crew chat runs partly in Spanish, it’s better stated than discovered. micro1 says it is “primarily looking for companies that operate in English and maintain their documentation, workflows, and knowledge bases in English.” Our page on records not in English covers what that means for a mixed office.

Data sources. The longest question on the form. “Select every business system your company uses. We want the complete list of data sources, even if you are still deciding what to include in the transfer. If a service is not listed, add it under Other.” The systems are grouped under four headings: “Workspace & communication,” “Planning & project tracking,” “Customer, sales & finance,” and “Engineering & data stores.”

Read the instruction again. It asks for every system, not only the ones you’d share. Listing a system doesn’t commit it. The accounting software belongs on the list even if you expect most of it to stay out.

Most of the named services are office and software tools. Trade software often isn’t in the list. That’s what “Other” is for. Below the list sits “Don’t see a service you use?” and “Add anything else your team has data in.” Add the field service program, the estimating program, the shared drive of job folders. Each source has a box marked “Notes (optional)” with the prompt “Anything we should know about this source.” Use it. “Work orders since 2017, technician notes on most” is the kind of line that tells a reader what’s inside.

Then a line that saves work: “No data sizes needed yet.” The manifest keeps sizes for later. After you submit, it says “You’ll add data sizes from your portal any time before your contract is signed.” Count roughly now if you like. Don’t export anything to get a number.

What the answers tell, taken together

Read as a whole, the form builds a picture in a set order. Who answers for the company. How big and how old it is. Whether it is still trading. How many people write things down. Where its people and customers are. Which systems hold the writing, over which years, in which language.

micro1 doesn’t publish how it weighs each answer. It does publish what it is after. It says it wants “data that reflects how work is actually performed within an organization,” and that it evaluates “the historical depth, breadth, quality, and relevance of the available data.” Each question on the form maps onto one of those words. The date range is depth. The list of systems is breadth. The notes are where quality shows. The industry and description are relevance.

So the form is not a test you pass by sounding big. It’s a description. A plain, accurate one helps the people who read it. The cornerstone page on what data buyers actually want from a trade business goes through which of those records carry the most weight.

What happens when you press submit

After the profile, the portal says “Thanks for sharing your company details. We’ll use this information to find the right next step for your company.” A holding screen reads “Reviewing your company information.”

The next step it shows is one of two. A short discovery call, which the portal says takes “Around 15–20 minutes” and “will ask about your company, capabilities, operations, and the types of opportunities that may be a good fit.” Or a page that reads “Book a call with a Data Partnership Manager to discuss potential opportunities and next steps.” micro1’s data partnerships page speaks of an initial interview that “helps assess whether the company and its data are a good fit for the program.” Our page on what happens in the initial interview goes through it.

After the manifest, micro1 says “our team reviews your manifest and your DPM will follow up about your offer.” Once submitted, the manifest becomes read-only, and the portal explains why: “Your offer is based on this version, so changes could affect it.” That’s one more reason to answer the manifest accurately the first time.

micro1 publishes no timeline for any of this. Its referral page says “There is no guaranteed timeframe between application and partnership completion.”

What this means for a mechanical contractor

Take a hypothetical mechanical contractor, our own example and not one from micro1. Sixty-five full-time people, heating, cooling and plumbing for commercial buildings, founded in 1991.

The operations manager opens the account with her company address. On the profile she writes the LLC’s legal name, the website, her role, the office phone. Headquarters: United States. Industry: “commercial mechanical contracting, HVAC and plumbing.” Product description: “We install and service heating, cooling and plumbing systems in offices, schools and warehouses. About 300 projects and 5,000 service calls a year.” Headcount 65. Start year 1991. No company page on the professional network, so she ticks the box. Status: Active.

On the manifest she splits the people. Twenty-two at desks today, twenty-eight at the peak in 2019. Team regions: United States, 100%. Customer regions: the same. Date range: 2006 to 2026, because the job files before 2006 are on paper in a storage unit. Language: English 95%, Spanish 5%, for the crew chat.

The systems list runs long. Email and the shared drive under workspace. The project schedule under planning. The accounting system under finance, with a note that most of it will stay out. Under “Other” she adds the estimating program, the field service program and the folder of scanned change orders, each with a line of notes. No sizes, no exports. The records behind those lines are the ones our pages on estimates and quotes and job files and work orders go through.

What the form has described, without naming a single customer, is twenty years of a company deciding things. The bid that went up after a site walk. The change order for ductwork that clashed with a beam nobody had drawn. The chiller that took three visits to diagnose. That’s what micro1 says it wants, and the form points straight at it.

Worth two minutes to see your range first? Our estimate asks a handful of questions and shows a range inside micro1’s published band. It’s our range, not micro1’s offer.

What is never included

The form itself draws the first line. It asks where customers are, never who they are. It asks for no prices, no invoices, no card numbers, no staff files.

micro1 says it “uses de-identified company data.” It says personal and identifying information “is removed or transformed before your data is shared with third parties.” Asked whether a company must anonymize its records before handing them over, it answers: “No, micro1 has processes for de-identifying and transforming sensitive information.” Our page on how it’s safe puts those points together.

What follows 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 your records sit near those lines, say so in the notes field and ask micro1 before any transfer.

micro1 says the records are de-identified before they are shared with third parties. Customer names and payments are never what is wanted. What is wanted is how the work was done: how an estimate became a job, how a change order was settled, how a repair was diagnosed. micro1’s announcement says real business operations “involve incomplete information, competing priorities and exceptions that require judgment.” That judgment lives in your job files.

Where we fit

We, TrustPast, read the form so you know what’s on it before you open it. We don’t fill it in, see your answers or hold your files. You can also apply without us; can you apply without TrustPast shows how. micro1 pays us a referral fee when a company that applied through our link completes a deal. You pay us nothing.

TrustPast

Questions and answers

What does micro1’s application ask first?

A work email. The sign-up page reads “Create an account with your company email to access your workspace,” and asks companies to “sign up with your company or professional email address.” Once the account exists, micro1 says “Our team is reviewing your access request and will notify you by email once it’s approved.”

What is on the company profile?

Thirteen fields when we read it on 3 November 2026: company legal name, company website, your first and last name, your role, phone number, headquarters country, industry, company headcount, the start year, the company’s LinkedIn page (or a box saying it has none), the company’s current status, and a product description.

Does the application ask for files or data sizes?

No files. The data manifest asks you to select every business system the company uses, the date range the records cover and their rough language mix. It says “No data sizes needed yet,” and that you’ll add sizes from the portal “any time before your contract is signed.”

Can a company that has closed fill it in?

Yes. The status question offers Active (“Operating, no plans to shut down.”), Winding down (“Stopping operations within 6 months.”) and Defunct (“No longer operating.”). A defunct company gives the last year it operated.

Does the application ask for customer names or payment records?

No. None of its questions asks for a customer’s name, a price or a payment. The one question about customers asks where they are, by region, as rough shares that add up to 100%. micro1 says it uses de-identified company data.

What happens after the form is submitted?

The portal says “We’ll use this information to find the right next step for your company.” The next step it shows is either a short discovery call, which it says takes “Around 15–20 minutes,” or a call booked with a Data Partnership Manager. After the manifest, micro1 says “our team reviews your manifest and your DPM will follow up about your offer.”