How a deal runs
The same process as a good sell-side broker on a business sale: inventory, rights, presentation, competing offers, terms, close. Written contract, counsel review and insured handling on every deal.
| Step | Who | What happens | Takes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Qualify | You | Ten-minute intake: systems, counts, years, where data lives, who owns it, whether outcomes are recorded | 1 day to reply |
| 2. Walk-through | You and us | Thirty-minute call mapping how a request moves through your tools to a result | 1 call |
| 3. Rights check | Us, with your counsel | Separate your own data from client-held material; read customer terms for de-identified-use clauses | 2 to 5 days |
| 4. Summary | Us | One page: what it is, size, years, systems, outcomes, rights status, exclusions. No files leave you | 2 days |
| 5. Buyers compete | Us | Summary goes to the buyers asking for your industry this month. Offers side by side | 1 to 2 weeks |
| 6. Negotiate | You, us, counsel | Price, exclusivity term, scope of use, one-off or ongoing, handling and deletion, liability, insurance | days |
| 7. De-identify | Third-party vendor | Names, emails, phones, accounts become stable pseudonyms. You review a sample. Raw files deleted | about 1 week |
| 8. Deliver and accept | Vendor and buyer | Buyer receives the package and has a written acceptance window | 5 to 30 days |
| 9. Payment | Buyer | On the terms in the license. Finder's fee from the buyer; advisory fee as agreed at step 4 | 1 week to 60 days |
What kills a deal
| Phone-first operations | The data reads "ticket opened, ticket closed" with nothing between |
| Software switch in the last 3 years | Scorable history starts at the switch |
| A missing core system | No chat export, email retention off, CRM purged |
| Client-held data under a master agreement | Belongs to the client, cannot be licensed |
| Non-English data | De-identification tooling is English-first |
| Seller wants to de-identify themselves | Breaks the relationships and the value |
| Padding | One broker shipped thousands of copies of a film to look big. The lab opened the folder |
What we never do
- Take custody of your raw data
- Sign you to a perpetual license
- Quote a number before a buyer has looked
- Send anything to a buyer you have not approved