Is SBIR right for you?
Getting involved in the SBIR or STTR program is a decision that should be made carefully.  It is indeed an excellent source of non-dilutive R&D funding—probably the best you’ll find anywhere.  However, competitive efforts in this program require serious proposal efforts and investments of time.  We teach the PROCESS of producing a competitive SBIR proposal—for this is definitely a process, and not just a writing task.

To begin with, you should make sure you qualify and are eligible for the program.  (See Qualifications).  Next, you need to find agency targets for your idea, (See Getting Started.)  and should begin asking yourself the questions that will indicate whether you are ready to write the proposal.  We talk about those issues more below.

Getting Started -   Program Solicitations and Topics

Each agency issues one or more solicitations annually. Probably the key advantage (other than the money) that this program offers is this solicitation, or “shopping list” that the program mandates the agencies to provide to the nation’s small firms.
For contract awards, proposals must respond directly to a specific topic in one of the solicitations. For grant awards, proposals must respond to the general areas of interest identified in the solicitation, or must fall within the stated mission of an institute (e.g., at NIH).  Unsolicited proposals are not accepted—meaning that you must be sending a proposal in response to a particular SBIR or STTR solicitation. 

To identify relevant topics, the small business should review or search current solicitations. Current and past solicitations may be searched by keyword at http://www.zyn.com/sbir. It is also valuable to contact appropriate technical managers in each agency directly.  Some solicitations (e.g., DOD) clearly identify the authors and contacts for each topic and invite conversations with those contacts during an open period for discussion many weeks before the deadline.

Remember  90% of the effort on a competitive Phase I proposal involves getting ready to write.   We don’t pretend to be able to guarantee wins in this program:  there are simply too many uncontrollable variables.
Our goal is to help applicants create a competitive proposal.  The SBIR program is highly competitive. It is NOT a government entitlement program.  Approximately 1 in 8 Phase I proposals receive funding, and approximately 2 in 5 Phase II proposals are funded (though these numbers can vary significantly by agency and year).  Competitive proposals must, first and foremost, be based on a high-quality, innovative idea that reviewers can get excited about—and that meets an important agency/market need.  Credibility is the next key aspect—one involving components such as method of presentation, knowledge of the state of the art (and relevant citations), understanding of the technical/economic problem, personnel, facilities, and commercial vision/capabilities.  
Finally, it is vitally important that small businesses preparing proposals for the SBIR program closely follow the instructions for format, content, and budgeting provided in the solicitation. Some agencies reject as many as 50% of all Phase I proposals because they fail to follow basic instructions and/or are somehow not “responsive” to the topic.

Participating Agencies-
Eleven agencies currently participate in the SBIR program (listed in order of program size in table); the largest five also participate in the STTR program. Their interests vary significantly, according to the mission of the agency and the current political climate. Several of the agencies (e.g., HHS and NSF) focus on fundamental research that has the potential to advance the state of the art. Others, such as DOD and NASA, are typically more interested in applied research that will result in a more immediate return and access to the technologies.