SBA Welcome & Getting Started with America’s Seed Fund

With every buzz, every launch, every dose and every sunrise, the world moves forward powered by passionate entrepreneurs bringing new Great ideas come from anywhere and anyone and just one idea can grow to improve the way we all live. But going from concept to commercialization requires funding for America's innovators. We are America's Seed Fund, the nation's largest source of non dilutive funding for technology startups backed by the strength of the federal government. 0% equity, 100% your vision, your intellectual property, your success. It's time to gain momentum by collaborating with up to 11 federal agencies who need your solutions for some of the nation's biggest challenges. If you're looking to change the world, America's Seed Fund is looking for you. Learn more and explore funding opportunities today@sba.gov.

Seedfund thank you all for joining us to kick off the 2022America's Seed Fund Week. I am Jennifer Shi, Director of Ecosystem Development for the Office of Investment and innovation of the U.S. small Business Administration, and you'll see me pop up throughout the week to help guide and orient you by giving you friendly reminders to use the Q and A function if you want us to actually answer some questions or look at the chat box for helpful links and meeting and connecting with other attendees to get us started. I am delighted to introduce Bailey DeVries, Associate Administrator for the Office of Investment and innovation of the U.S. small Business Administration. As Associate Administrator, Ms. DeVries leads the SBA's Private Markets Investment Portfolio, the SBIC Program, and oversees the Agency's Innovation, Investment and Assistance Programs, sbir, STTR and our Growth Accelerator programs. She brings a depth of industry experience to the sba, having served in senior leadership roles at private and public markets asset management firms and in defense contracting. Ms. DeVries is dedicating her career to supporting women and diverse entrepreneurs and investors achieve their goals. She's an advocate for women in private Equity, serving on the Private Equity Women Investor Networks Foundation Leadership Task Force, and we are so lucky to have Ms. DeVries bring her passion and private investment experience to the Federal government to advance the partnerships needed to build an inclusive innovation ecosystem. Over to you Bailey.

Thank you Jennifer, and a warm welcome to each and every one of the American innovators and entrepreneurs joining us today as the head of the U.S. small Business Administration's Office of Investment and Innovation. It is my great honor and pleasure to welcome you to the 20America's Seed Fund Week. The SBA serves as the agency focused on delivering the dream of American business ownership. Small businesses are the giants of our economy. They create two thirds of all net new jobs and 40% of economic output. And the thousands of companies that tap into the small business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer Programs, fondly known as America's Seed Fund, are central to driving this growth. While all companies start as small businesses, many grow to be giants of industry. And our office is the office focused on you entrepreneurs driven to achieve innovative big dreams. And we're here to support our human potential to achieve incredible things and foster unity which can come from scientific innovation supported by programs like sbir. I'll actually take a moment and share that if I reflect on the photos released last week from the James Webb Space Telescope. It reminds us of our massive potential as human beings to achieve what seems often impossible and how human achievement is often at its grandest and most excellent when we unite around the common mission of science and innovation. SBRIR played a role in this journey. Thousands of scientists and engineers and technicians contributed to build, test and integrate the web. In total, There were over 250 companies, agencies and universities that participated. It is the entrepreneurs, it is the innovators, it is the entrepreneurial support organizations and tech transfer programs that enable such amazing innovation. And we are just one part of an agency tasked with making the American dream of innovation and business ownership a reality with funding and market opportunities and networks including for entrepreneurs working on our most advanced technologies and most intricate and challenging problems. If we think about the experiences of the past few years, we should think about what an important moment this has been for the sba. What has happened As a result of the COVID pandemic? SBA has scaled dramatically. Typically the agency was providing $40 billion of output of 500 billion and now we've grown to an output of 500 billion in relief funds and capital programs. Through our Covid relief programs we reach millions more than at any time in the agency's history. This is tremendous growth. It also represents the tremendous need and demand for our support and services from small businesses across the country. Many of the businesses we have served and continue to serve were the smallest of the small and entrepreneurs came from all communities, underserved communities as well as major cities, people of color, women, veterans and individuals with disabilities, people across all groups and communities suffered and were impacted by the pandemic and needed our support and services. The work that we do is particularly important for supporting the high growth and innovative small businesses as well. Too many entrepreneurs and often their game changing innovations do not receive the support that they need to grow and thrive. This kind of inefficiency carries significant opportunity costs for our country and our economy and only serves as a drag on our global competitiveness. We must think about how we can address these gaps and eliminate them and solve for the inefficiencies to ensure that American entrepreneurs, the investors as well as the ecosystem support organizations who support them and surround them, reflect our changing demographics and our world, our changing needs. So we are working to leverage our increased scale along with our new expanded lending networks and community reach to better serve more entrepreneurs and more businesses throughout their life cycle. We want to better connect all of our innovative, high growth US Small businesses and entrepreneurs with sources of patient capital, with Federal R and D funds and entrepreneurial networks to help them build and grow, to create jobs and to solve the most challenging of problems that often seemed impossible. President Biden often likes to say that we need great ideas from everywhere and everyone to help us solve the challenges we face today. Every day in communities across America, entrepreneurs are solving our nation's most pressing challenges. From climate change to food insecurity to healing the world. It is our job at the SBA to ensure that those ideas get the support that they need from federal programs and innovation ecosystems so that they can commercialize and grow into resilient businesses serving so many across the country and the world. America's seed fund programs are supporting cutting edge innovators right now in every state, helping to build pathways from lab to market through a highly competitive process across 11 federal agencies. They are solving big problems and we are in unprecedented times, but I know that together we will be building a better America and world. I hope that the conversations you have this week and listen to inspire you to take that next step to advance your own innovation vision, your creative skills and connections and the work with us to launch or grow a transformative and resilient business. Each and every person here today is a vital part of the innovation engine that drives our economy. We all have different roles, but we're all rowing in the same direction and my job and the SBA's job is to create an environment that keeps you innovating and supports you at every step as you take your idea, your research, your prototype and transition it into a product or service and iterate and iterate again to bring it forward. So I encourage you to take full advantage of all the connections and collaborations that this event has to offer. The SBA is here to be your partner as you take your ideas to the world and know what resources are available. Reach out and be intentional. The SBA has incredible services but also tap into Your networks, build partnerships and seek out support. Together, we will unite and forge a new path forward to a brighter future. And I'd like to just say thank you and turn the stage over to my esteemed colleague, John Williams, the Director of Innovation and Technology, who has been our tireless leader to make sure that SBA becomes as well known for supporting high tech and deep tech entrepreneurship as it is for maintaining our Main street small businesses. So with that, welcome to the stage, John.

Thank you, Billy. Appreciate that. And thanks for all you do for this program. And, and it was great to give an overview of what SBA has done over the last few years, especially with COVID We're going to kind of switch gears a little bit. I'm going to share my screen and give you your first presentation of the week, but we're excited to have you here for America's Seed Fund Week. The goal of this is to provide insight about what the program does, how to gain access, if it's a good fit for you. So we've got the. The option for you to find out a lot about all the different agencies, what they do, what they focus on, and then really our resource partners are those that can provide that direct help to you. We really want to get more people into the program. One of our main missions at sba and my job and Jennifer's and Bailey's is to really expose more individuals to the SBIR and STTR funding program and to get that R and D funded to everyone out there. As they said, you know, it is important and we know great ideas come from everyone, so it's really important. So, you know, SBIR program, we're exciting week, this is our 40th anniversary is on the 22nd. So this leads into that we've done some brand changing. So we're really focusing on America's seed fund, trying to move a little bit away from acronyms SBIR and STTR, but those are the core programs. SBIR started 40 years ago. It's been a key program and really that design was how, as federal government, do we make sure that small businesses are participating in that R and D efforts and making sure that it's not just going to large universities and large businesses in the labs, but really also getting those ideas and funding those ideas at small businesses. So this is clearly a tech program. We're here to fund high tech and move that into products and services, some for the agency, some for the commercial sector. But really these things are designed to help improve you, fund you as a tech startup and, and really Change the world. So with that, let's see how my slides move.

Oh, come on.

There we go.

Okay, so program is about 4 billion a year. It's a lot of fours here. 40 years, 4 billion a year. Over 4,000 companies per year get funded. There's about 7,000 awards. We'll kind of go into that. But again, really unique program in the federal government where you maintain the rights to the ip, not an equity stake taking. And really. And there's no loan to pay back. So this isn't a loan, this is a contract for grant that you as that company were funding that research and helping you develop that technology. So America's seed fund, again non dilutive and really to kind of help you take that technology and commercialize it. And we'll talk about what that word commercialization means. But that is an important element. We're not doing research for research sake. We're trying to move it forward and we're trying to get into things that can transition into. What we talk about is this phase three.

I'm sorry, I went too fast.

So again, great ideas come from anywhere. We really are trying to expand the diversity of the program and that's geographic, demographic, we want to make sure that regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, orientation, geography, whatever, we're getting those proposals and those ideas. So the goal this week is to really make sure people are aware of what the funding opportunities are, how to apply and make sure as many people apply to the program that it fits and so that we get those ideas from everyone. So you'll hear the agencies talk about different phases, phase one, two and three. The simple side of it is phase one is that early stage proof of concept. They're looking six to 12 month effort, anywhere from 50,000 to 275,000 in some cases even more than that for some of the agencies. And that's really that first stage that was funded with the federal funding. And then if that goes well, agencies will fund a couple phase ones in different areas and many, many phase ones and then those will lead into phase two and at that stage you're going to develop your technology more maybe prototype development. And those are typically 24 months, 750,000 to 1.8 million. And then the goal and that what's unique about this program, especially for the mission agencies we'll talk about later is that once you've been awarded a phase one and at the Department of Defense wants to continue that program into this phase three, it's a non competitive award. But when we talk about phase three, we're really talking about, we want to fund research that commercializes whether that's going into a military hardware, onto the Hubble, I mean, or the James Webb telescope or to the private sector. So our goal is to kind of help you move that technology forward. So what do you have to be to be an SBIR company? I'm sorry, my slides are sent. You have to be a for profit company located within the United states, less than 500 people, but most are less than 10 and then owned and controlled by US citizens or permanent residents. So you can be a startup, you can be an established company. And typically these companies are and have advanced technologies, research type expertise. These are the requirements though that to be an SBIR app. So what do we fund? We really fund everything across the board. So I think, you know, whether it's ag, tech and different agencies, I think what's important, what I like to point out on this slide is clean energy, climate sciences and things. You know, you would sometimes you might think, well Department of Energy will fund some of those things but also the Department of Defense fund funds a ton on climate sciences because obviously climate affects what the Department of Defense does. And so you don't want to look at one agency and say, well that's the agency for me. And really we're going to kind of talk a little bit and you're going to dig into more of the agencies on how do I find topics and how do I make sure that what I'm doing I know who to apply to. So again we find across the board. But I think what's important to understand then kind of is you'll hear about agencies talk about grants and contracts and market driven and mission driven and technology pull and things like that. So what's important is the market driven side. These are typically agencies that are doing grants and they're looking for the idea to come from you. You're coming up with a solution, a problem that you think your technology can address. And so that's very much driven by the entrepreneur, the one with the idea. And that is typically these agencies. And what's nice is this is the first list. I think we're showing you all the agencies that participate in the program. So by law an agency has to participate in the program if they have over 100 million in R and D and they have to set aside at least 3.2% of that to fund small businesses through SBIR and a smaller 0.45% to fund STTR. So again that includes the Department of Energy, Health and Human Services with a Big player of nih, National Science foundation, usda, nist, noaa, EDA and epa. And those are the ones typically doing grants. And typically those are your market driven. They are not going to buy your technology typically. So they're looking for you to fund an idea that falls into their responsibilities. But they want to see you then typically move that into the commercial sector. Very different. At the Department of Defense, NASA, DHS and dot, those organizations are looking to fund ideas to solve specific problems they need resolved. They want to buy the technology, they want to use the technology. And that's where that phase three transition into a non competitive award for them to continue to fund. It really comes into play because the federal government, they can go reach back out and make up phase three awards of any size. You can actually even as a company grow above the small business size standard and still get phase three. But those groups, when they put out topics, those are usually tighter topics. They're looking for a specific need to address a specific need. But they're probably not going to tell you how to solve it. They're looking for you to come up with the ideas on how to solve it. But they have a focus and a real requirement and a timeframe of when they need that technology to move forward. So a lot of resources out there and I think this is an important chart to kind of, since this is a week long event, you do have time to kind of do some searching on the web and kind of learn a little bit more about the program. And we have some great resources for that. So you're going to hear about a rebranding of our sbir.gov website on Friday. So we are really trying to make that site more easy to use from a non kind of government speak strategy. So but sbir.gov has some great information and tutorials, you know, how to learn more about the program, how to stay aware of things. I really strongly recommend that everyone on this call sign up to our newsletter that comes out monthly. And that's if you link onto the Bitly list there. But the important thing too you'll hear about the program does expire at the end of this year. So this program again been in place for 40 years, but each set of years sometimes it's 4, 8. It has to be reauthorized and it needs to be reauthorized by September 30th of this year. And so people ask about well is it going to be authorized, what's going to happen? What's the impact if it's delayed for a little bit Best place to get all that information is through our website and through our newsletter. So I recommend anyone with curiosity there to go to that site. And so we'll also try to keep everyone informed. We're confident that Congress will work on this and they are working on it hard. And then we'll get to a solution and get this program reauthorized again. So, again, another great source for information is our tutorials. You can get agency overviews, which you'll get later this week. But, you know, maybe you want to catch up a little bit and get a little bit ahead and learn a little bit more about each program, each agency, some of the basics of the program, even looking at topics. I always recommend folks to go in and actually look at awards and see in your technology what are the kind of things that are funded and by who, and that might then help you indicate, okay, these are agencies maybe I wouldn't have thought about, maybe I would have, but they are the ones that funding kind of the work that I do. So there's a lot of great resources on sbir.gov, some great tutorials. And so I really strongly recommend everyone take advantage of that and check that out. Now, another really big part is we're a small office. We can, you know, directly engage every individual that wants to participate in this program. So what we've done is to set up local assistance organizations. And so I think it's really important. We're not going to have those individuals as part of this event. You're going to mainly hear from the agencies, but it is important to take advantage of that. And so if you go to our sbir.gov local assistance, we have really over 500 partners across the SBA platform. So that includes our district offices and our small business offices and things. But also with sbir, we have some specific programs that we have funded that really target specific groups. And so with that, our premier group is FAST, and we have 33 organizations currently funded. And if you go to SBIR about FAST, you can find out who in your state is the coordinator across that state. And they provide a lot of education. They also provide, oftentimes some funding to help you develop proposals or direct assistance. And so there's a lot of great opportunities that states have, and the best way to find out about what they are is to reach out to your FAST partner. Good news is that we are about to award probably an additional 10 plus FAST awards in addition to these 33 that already exist. So we're really working hard to try to make sure that there's a rep in every state that is available to you and paid and funded by SBA and local resources also being funded by to really help you figure out the program and take the next steps and figure out is it right for you? If it is, okay, I want to go after that agency. How do I write a proposal?

How do I win?

So real important group and another group that we did award in 21, but these organizations are existing right now, so they got funding, smaller amounts of funding. But again, organizations that know what SBIR is, they're here to help and focus on the tech company, the entrepreneur that's really moving technology forward. And so that's another great source to identify and to work with. And so if you go to our accelerator group that lists all the groups and organizations that we have funded, so really encourage you to reach out to these organizations to take those next steps. So I think, you know, important use sbir.gov website, you're going to see a big launch and how we've improved upon that. But also join our listserv. Reach out and the email for technologyba.gov is the best way to get access to us. This is going to be exciting week. I'm going to turn it over to Jen in a second and she's going to kind of tell you how to make the most of this week and really how to take advantage and learn as much as possible through this special SBIR week that we have, or I should say, America's Seed Fund Week, our new branding. So with that, I want to turn it over to Jen. Jen, thanks and all yours.

Thanks, John. Yes, it's fantastic to see the activity in the chat and the question and answers. So, you know, that's actually one of our goals for you this week is to gain insight from each other as well and learn about the resources that are possible.

Stop sharing.

I can share as well, but I. So we. Oh, fantastic. Thanks, John. So today, really, we're trying to make sure that people get a chance to learn enough about America's Seed Fund to determine is this actually the right program for you and what can you do to take the next step? Gain insight into what it takes to develop a proposal, submit an application, how the agencies vary and who might be a good fit for your business, and then what success looks like and how we can help. And so that's the programming from SBA that we have here to support for you. And that way you can also hear directly from the federal agency program managers and learn about all of the different resources. So John mentioned our local resource partners across the country. I see some of them in the chat. So the next slide talks a little bit about what you should see on the schedule for America's Seed Fund week. And you can filter to see all the SBA LED programs. And pretty soon I'm going to be introducing our first panel where you can get a lot of your questions that you've been throwing in already answered. And then you can see that kind of overall. We are bringing you on Thursday a special double header with the Federal Laboratory, Consortium and Ecosystem, as well as the U.S. patent and Trademark Office and U.S. copyright Office to come talk about how to protect your intellectual property. But throughout the next few panels today, tomorrow and Wednesday, you're going to hear from at least nine different agencies that fund the SBIR and STTR programs. And on the next slide, what I wanted to highlight here was those agencies. So it's beyond just connecting with the Small Business Administration, really. This is about connecting with the agencies that fund these companies. And so I strongly suggest that you go on Tuesday after the panel. We've got reverse pitches from all of these agencies. So you can hear what is it that they fund? What is it that they care about? How do you interact and reach out to them? So every 25 minutes you're going to hear from another federal agency, but throughout the 2 to 4pm out block of time, they're going to be agency representatives hanging out at like an expo hall. You can come ask them, ask them questions. Do you ask them, you know, do you actually fund pilots and flight simulators? Do you fund things in the infrastructure area? And there's such variety. One of the beautiful things, though it may be somewhat complex that there's so many different agencies and different processes, the beautiful thing about it is that that means there's a lot of flexibility and there's probably a place for you and your technology beyond the agencies. The next slide shows you how to find the local community events that are happening. So if you filter the schedule on AmericaSeed Fund US, you can find those community partners who are hosting their own events and you can figure out, you know, and talk to them about whether your program is right for, for this, this funding. And then they'll also know many other resources that may be available to you. So this is a great way to start to get to know your local community support. And that's also in the schedule. So please do check out some of the programs today. I know that Idaho and Texas are having a couple of programming to introduce you to their programs. As well as more detailed specifics. So maybe this is not the right stage for you. This is too high level here for you on the SBA side and you've already applied. Maybe you want to talk for some more specific help. And finally, I think that I get to now introduce our first panel about getting started. So getting started with America's Seed Fund, we've got a fantastic moderator, Eldon Hawks from the Small Business administration, and then three amazing speakers to represent NASA, Dr. Quentin Bonds, the National Science foundation with Dr. Rajesh Mehta and April Richards from the Environmental Protection Agency. So over to you, Eldon.

Thank you, Jennifer. Appreciate it. Good afternoon everyone. As Dr. Shi said, I am Eldon Hawks and I serve as the partnership Innovation specialist here at SBA. And I've had the great fortune throughout my 10 plus year government career to work specifically with America's Seed Fund. And in all of my experience and all of my interactions with people all over the country, the number one question that is asked is how do I get started? Well, that's what we're here today to hopefully answer. And we have a great panel here who has decades of experience with sbir, TTR and America's C Fund as a whole. And I like to introduce you to them briefly and then I'll have them introduce themselves. First, we have April Richards from the United States Department of, of United States Environmental Protection Agency. I want to say Department Environmental Protection. And also we have Quentin Barnes from NASA and then we have Rajesh Menta from the National Science Foundation. And I would like, April, for you to start with a basic introduction of yourself, your agency and a common piece of advice you would give to someone just starting out.

All right, thank you for having me. I am April Richards. I am the program manager for the Environmental Protection Agency's sbir and I think I'm the representative for the small agencies. So epa, small agency, but super important mission, which is to protect human health and the environment. So we are looking for technologies that are going to help us meet that mission. And I think you guys are on the right track because I think it is a little overwhelming, this program. There are so many moving parts. So today and this week you'll hear from a lot of different agencies. You can kind of say maybe this one is a good one. This one doesn't really fit. But you know, you can start with a lot of information instead of trying to navigate all of our websites and other ways to find is this is a good way to start. I think you're really just trying to figure out Does SBIR work for me? Is it a good part of my investment strategy for my small business? And what agencies should I target? It is great non dilutive equity in your company, but it's the government. So there's a few bureaucratic challenges that you might have to face. So you're going to need to do your homework to figure out what those are. So I will stop there.

Thank you, April. Rajesh, I'll turn it over to you.

Thank you, Elden. So for National Science foundation, you saw that slide from John which talked about all the topics that are funded by SBR program in general. We fund all those topics and more. So if you don't see a topic on that list, you can still apply because of your topic called other topics. So we welcome all the small businesses and we look forward to working with you.

Thank you, Rajesh. Quentin.

Hey, good morning, everybody. Looking forward to America's C Fund Week. So I am Quentin Barnes from NASA's SBIR STTR program. I work in the program management office on several programs from SBIR to. We also just launched what we call our Ignite program for more product driven commercialization focused firms. You may see me at some of the outreach events. But the main, I think advice that I would give to firms. April kind of alluded to it, but do your homework, do your homework. Do your homework. For NASA. We have tons of topics. We don't have an open topic. We are a contracting agency, meaning that we want to use your technology phase one and phase two. Phase one is a concept study. Phase two is a kind of a prototype or mvp. And so what I mean by do your homework is look at the solicitation. Try to make sure that your technology is an answer to what our scientists and engineers are asking in the solicitation. Our solicitation is broken down into subtopics. So under those subtopics, there are scopes. And our scientists and engineers, subject matter experts, clearly call out what they're looking for in those subtopics and those scopes. And so, you know, look at those subtopics and scopes and do searches and do your research throughout, you know, the website, through our website and NASA's website to see, you know, how can your firm meet a need? How can you solve a problem for us? In addition, show your commercialization, but that will come a little further on. So that's the best advice that I could give to firms.

Thank you. Quinton, I'm gonna stay with you for this first question. How does one get started? You know, that's the Number million dollar question, how you get started in that answer, could you talk about some of the differences that you see compared to say approaches scientists versus someone who's a business side also new and existing entrepreneurs.

Yeah, great question, Eldon, Great question. And I'm glad you asked the question. And because you all are on this call, I'm going to give you all some inside information that we don't just share with everybody. Okay? So for firms that's looking to get started, you're brand new, you're fresh. What I've seen is that the firms that have done the best with NASA, each organization is different. They have kind of looked at, okay, what is my expertise and how can I find who at NASA is working in my area of expertise. One of those ways that you do that that I feel like is the low hanging fruit way is whatever your technology is. So I'm a microwave guy. I built microwave instruments for years in NASA and outside of NASA I would search for microwave instrument or radiometer type of antenna and I would just put NASA in Google Scholar, try to find who is working on that. You know, look at the author's name in Google Scholar. Everybody knows about Google Scholar. That's deep tech research and development. And maybe send them an email not to sell them your product, but send them an email saying hey, I'm interested in your technology. I work in this area. Can I have a little bit more background about what are you doing? And get up, start a dialogue like again, the firms that I found that are the Most successful at NASA, they built relationships with the PIs and the Corps. Again, this is not mandatory, all right? You're just not mandatory. You can blindly go in and put in a what? I've seen firms win that way. But I'm also talking about what I've seen as the best way to get into the door. So that's number one, I gave you the example of Google Scholar. Number two, unfortunately it's kind of an all out search. We have a decadal survey for all of our different areas. Look at the way NASA structure is broken down. We have four mission directors which we recently went to five. So we have an Aeronautics Space Technology Mission Directorate, Science Mission Directorate. We also have a heal Human Exploration Mission directorate which we just broke down into two separate mission directors, right? Each of those mission directors have what we call a decadal survey, what we want to do over the next 10 years. So search our decadal surveys, search the game changing development website, the tipping point website. And everybody knows we have the Artemis website. Right. You can just go to NASA and search all the different things that I've just said and get a better understanding of what we are doing with NASA. And again, your goal is to build relationships even if you have to have. John and some of the others talked about the community development organizations. If you're not privy to how to build relationships, hopefully your local community development organizations will help you understand and give you some strategies on how to build relationships rather than just selling the technology for purchase. And maybe we'll have a Q and A at the end if people need further explanation, but that's the best advice that I can give.

Thank you. Chris, same question, but also try to expound a little bit as far as NSF is concerned, as far as that relationship portion is concerned when it comes to getting your foot in the door, so to speak.

Yeah. So for nsf what we have done is we have actually streamlined our process because we get massive number of inquiries. So we actually want you to develop a relationship with the program, not the program directors. We have lot of good information on our website and since we are open to all the topics, we are telling everybody that if your idea meets our merit review criteria, we are very interested in working with you regardless of the topic. So whether you are a scientist or you are a commercial expert, just come to us and explain to us why what you are trying to work on is important for the society. How is that going to be commercially viable and what are the huge technical challenges that you are facing that justifies taxpayer funding? And you can look at our website, we also have a tool that you can look at what we have funded in last 10 years or so and you can actually get a sense for kind of projects that have been supported by nsf.

Thank you Rajesh. Now April, same question to you. But I also want you to talk about there any differences considering especially compared to our other colleagues here, your agency has a drastically smaller budget than NASA and nsf. Does that impact how people get their foot in the door when it comes to epa?

Yes, absolutely. Yeah, we have a drastically smaller budget to save the planet is my joke. Not so funny joke. But yeah. So we're really mission focused, right? We really want, we want technologies that are going to help us meet that mission. So kind of like unlike Rajesh, we have a fairly specific list of topics and we really only want you to apply if you're addressing one of those topics because we want you to have a reasonable success of being funded, a reasonable chance of being funded. So we can't unfortunately, fund everything that would help the planet. We're trying to pick some priority areas every year, focus on those, and if you do have a technology that will help us solve one of those, then you will have a reasonable chance of getting funded like you would at another larger SBIR agency. Again, we're epa. I know, I've said it. But we get excited. If you're reducing your carbon emissions, if you're lowering toxicity, if you're addressing energy use and water use, if you show us all of those things that you're doing, we'll get excited about those proposals. I always tell people to really emphasize things that help support our mission.

Thank you, April. I have a question from the audience, and I'll paraphrase this. They're talking about, what if the IP is not about technology, but rather the application of technology in a new way? In this case, they give building a new level infrastructure systems beyond the program's intent or capacities. Is that a fair assessment? So basically, you know, you were talking about IPs, that. About technology that really are repurposing that technology in new and different ways. How nicely, how accessible, but how much of your agency's sort of research and development allows for that when it comes to the application process?

So I guess I could go ahead. Go ahead, Quinton.

Yeah, I guess I could kind of start there. So for NASA, you know, we're looking for deep tech research and development, so we're not really looking for a repurposing of a current technology. And I think that's just because of the type of work we do. Right. Like. Like if we're building instrumentation, basically for Artemis, that's the program that we want to go to the moon with intentions of going to Mars. It's hard to take something that you've already developed and just add a widget. However, look through our solicitation, look through the different subtopics and see, because I could be wrong. We got 100, I think, five or six subtopics this year. But look through our current solicitation, get a better understanding of when the new solicitation comes out. Get a better understanding of. Of what our scientists and engineers are looking for. And you may be able to do that, even though I can't really see that being happening, because we're looking again, deep tech research and development, creating new technologies, things that have not currently existed. But I think that's. That's from the NASA standpoint.

Thank you, Quintin. Rajesh.

So from NSF perspective, what we typically look for is the major Technical challenge in accomplishing the goal. So it really doesn't matter whether it's a brand new technology or a repurposed technology. Can you demonstrate that the degree of complexity and degree of challenge involved is significant? Because we are really looking for high risk, high reward idea. So you have to establish the high risk part of it and then it would be okay to apply to our program.

April?

Yeah, I would say sort of somewhere in the middle. I think ideally we want disruptive technologies. They're really game changers. That's kind of what we'd like to see. Like Rajesh said, high risk, high payoff. But I think in practice, our portfolio definitely has. I hate the word repurposed. That sounds like a used car or something. But that's, you know, like maybe it's just a new application. Right? You're taking a technology and you're targeting at a new contaminant or some new. A problem that we have. So if it does address a problem that we have and it's a new application, I do think it is. It is. Would be eligible.

Okay, thank you. One more question before we get into sort of the main tract of things. How or can you send a proposal simultaneously, meaning the same proposal to various agencies at the same time, or do you have to do it sequentially to various agencies? So if one doesn't fit your technology, technology doesn't fit that one agency, would it be best to move on to another one? Or would it be best to send out that technology, if it fits, for multiple agencies, to multiple agencies to see what happens?

I can take that. We actually have no problems you sending your proposals to various agencies. However, you have to declare that in your application that you are applying to other agencies. And if you are so lucky to be awarded, potentially awarded by multiple agencies, then you have to pick one. You cannot have funding for doing the same work from two agencies. That's a no.

No. Our rules are exactly the same. I think those rules are across the sba, same thing Rajesh said. So.

Thank you. Now, quick point about the last question. As far as multiple, not multiple IPs being reused, a lot of that's going to come down to the agency. Some agencies are going to be very specific about innovation as what we talked about here. Also, some are very open to repurposing existing ip, existing technology, if it fits their purpose. Before my life at sba, I was at usda and I saw that quite often dod, depending on the solicitation in a branch, will repurpose technology if it fits the needs that they have for the warfighter. So a lot of that is just going to come down to what the agency's research priorities are and their needs are overall. So that's what you really have to look into. And that also goes in a lot in to where you need to start, what you need to do before you can start. And a part of that is identifying which agencies you want to go to target and talk to. But also, April, I'm going to start with you. Can you talk about that starting process for a company? Does a company need to have a formal structure and do they need to know all the key personnel when they apply?

Yeah, I think the answer is yes. Again, this sort of goes to the bureaucratic hurdles, like there's just multiple registrations that you have to have in place to apply. So for us, we use a portal, FedConnect. I think we are unique in that portal. But to apply with FedConnect, you have to have your SAM registration. We do contracts. So I think any contracting agency, you have to have that SAM registration. And that's got quite a bit of a lead time. And it's kind of out of our hands, by the way. It's a separate system, so you really have to get that kind of locked down. Outside of working with EPA or other agencies, you have to go to SBA and get that SBC control ID number to register with them. That's pretty easy, right, Eldon? That should be super easy, isn't it?

Yes.

And then you have to. You have to have your duns, which is now uei. Right. You have to have that number. So there's just those things you have to have in place. You really need them at time of reward. But the way our systems work, you really need it at the time you apply because they all feed into each other.

Okay, thank you. How about. And this is more of a question for everyone, specifically in general, how about that team? Do you need to know your key personnel, all of your key personnel at the time of application?

I'll just keep answering since I'm talking. But for us, we evaluate on teams, so you really, you would have to tell. That's a big criterion for us. So I think you'd want to, because that's partly how you're going to get evaluated. So I don't see how you would add people later. So, yes, you will be evaluated on your team, both business and technical qualifications.

Okay, thank you, Rajesh.

Yeah, I will just agree with what April said. We also say that, you know, not the senior people, but other people that you may want to hire and you are looking for them there, you can just say, these are the qualifications we need. This is the skill set that is needed. And give the appropriate code number so evaluators can understand what is the gap that you're trying to fill with that skill set. So there you don't need to have the names, but you have to recognize that those are the places you are keeping them as placeholders on the team.

Okay, thank you, Jeff. Quentin, anything to add to that?

Yeah, I agree with both of my colleagues. In addition to that, we're also going to look at your facilities. So we're going to see if you have the facilities to do the work that you say you can do. And if you just look at it from a practical standpoint, right, if you were subcontracting your work, you're going to want to know, like, can they do the work? And so for NASA, we are going to look at your team, we're going to look at your level experience. Can you do the work? Do you have an expert that's, you know, you have this key enabling technology that can take things to the next level. You know, do you have the expertise that can actually do that? So the answer is yes. And Eldon is asking some awesome questions. This is some great getting started questions. So firms, you all should really pay attention to this. This is one of the, some of the best getting started questions I ever heard.

Okay, thank you.

Now, Quinton, can I jump on one more thing?

Go ahead, April.

I was just going to say, like, I just. We definitely want you to have experience and know what you're doing, but we've really, at epa, we've even tried to like, broaden our criteria so we're not penalizing startups. So if you don't have a track record, show us that you have the potential to commercialize. So while you need to have your company and everything, but we are trying not to penalize you if you're a startup and you don't have a track record of commercialization, as long as you have gotten your ducks in a row and you've got some commercialization experience on hand. So I just wanted to throw that in there.

Yeah, and I would say the same thing for NASA. Like, we don't. We are. When I say we're looking at your team, we're not saying that you all should have, you know, develop a certain amount of technologies in your current team. Just, do you all, like, have experience? Because, like, we were looking, I was looking at some of Our post awards, that's past phase one and phase two, you can get awarded up to I think probably an extra two and a half to $3 million past phase one and phase two. And some of the firms were like three three person firms and some of them were first time awardees. And so just like April mentioned, we want startups, we want first time awardees. We just want you all to show that you can actually do the work.

So I'll just say for nsf, almost half of the awards that we have made in 2020 were to first time applicants. They never applied to any federal agency ever. 85% or more of the companies had fewer than 10 employees and 95% of the companies were started in last five years. So we are really startup friendly and we welcome people with great ideas to look at our programs.

That's actually a great segue. I was just. Now one of the things that I wanted to mention is that in the past few years, 46% of the awards have gone to new applicants, new businesses. So it's not as if you have this glut of award winners constantly getting awards every single year and shutting out the little guy, shutting out the new guy. During my time at usda, many of the companies were very small companies, two, three people and a lot of them were absolutely brand new. Started with a great idea, great technology in order to pursue either SBI at the time, SBI award. And you see that a lot with many pretty important across the board when it comes to those that try to compete for this sort of funding. Now what I wanted to ask about is, and I'll stick with you rejection this one. Could you talk to us about who can you talk to at nsf? You know, who or what do I need or what does an applicant need to do before they can talk to someone at your agency about the project? Like talk about that sort of. Is there a blackout period? Are there specific questions or things they need to come with if they want to talk to someone with regards to potentially applying? Talk to us about that at NSF please.

Okay. So we have actually instituted a process that seems to be the most time efficient because of the volume of inquiries. The first thing you want to do is go to our website, seedfund.nsf.gov it's chock full of very useful information. There is a recorded webinar, we also have ongoing webinar every week where you can talk to a program director live. And lot of these frequently asked questions that have been answered. Then the next step is you submit A project pitch, which is like a three pager, one paragraph each on some four basic questions that gives us the background information about what is it that you are curious about. And we promise that we will return a response to you within four weeks. That's the promise we make. In general, the time is actually few days. You get an answer whether your idea is something that would fit into the program or not. If there is insufficient information, we ask for that information, or if there is a need for a conversation, at that point the program director will have an opportunity to talk to you. We actually do not encourage people to try to reach out to us simply because of the volume of emails and phone calls we are getting. So the best thing to get in touch with NSF is to go to website, submit a project pitch and take it from there.

Thank you, Jess. April, can you comment on a sort of period as far as talking to, asking questions, things of that nature, please?

Sure.

And I guess so the flip side of being a small agency is I'm kind of it for the, for the program. So you can contact me, I can help navigate to topic authors if there are questions about specific topics. But basically all roads lead to me. And I'll say we have a solicitation open right now. And so I am getting a lot of questions from potential proposers. And we have a very knowledgeable contracting officer now that actually lets me answer questions in a general format. So even now I'm allowed to provide general feedback. So we really don't have a hard and fast blackout period. We just want to help you figure out whether you should be spending all that time to submit a proposal or not. So yeah, feel free to email me. That's the best way. Again, I would love it if you read the topics first so that you know that you, you think you have an idea that fits one of our priority areas. So as Rajesh said, definitely checking that the website would be a great place to start.

And Quentin?

Yeah. So you actually asked that question at a great time. Right now we're not in blackout. Our selections were announced sometimes late May, early June. So what you can do is just go to our website, download last year's solicitation. Okay, so the PY22 solicitation, download it and look at the subtopics from last year. And at each subtopic it shows you which centers are leading that particular work. And you can reach out to the cttl, that's the center technology leader, the center lead for each agency, each one of our NASA centers. So if you don't know about NASA. We have 13 NASA centers and the centers that do research and development are listed. Their acronyms are listed in our solicitation. And so you could just google our solicitation again, go in and look and see which subtopics are relevant last year and reach out to the contact person there. You'll have to look at our program contacts page to see which particular agency that person is from. I don't know if I can, can I, can I share my screen? Is that possible?

I believe so, yes.

All right, I'm gonna take a shot at this. I'm gonna see if I can share my screen to show you how you do this real quick. Let's see. All right, so. All right, this is our solicitation. Right. And you just download it. And once you get into the solicitation you can, you will be able to go to the program contacts page. Can you all see. Still see the contacts page. And so you can see here pretty much every NASA center. So these are the mission directors, but every NASA center. Armstrong. Let me see if I can make it bigger. Armstrong, Ames, Goddard. Each NASA center has a program contact and their emails are listed here. And so hopefully that makes it easy for you to find out once you look at the solicitation, who to contact. All right. And I'm going to give it back over you to you Elder.

Thank you sir. Appreciate it. This, I'm stick with you with this one. I'll go back around but yes.

Yeah. May I just add one more thing?

Yes.

Forgot to mention you can submit a project pitch to NSF anytime. There is no window, no deadline or nothing. And also for the proposals, we accept proposals during windows and that is three times a year. So basically you can submit a proposal almost on a rolling basis.

Thank you, Rajesh.

Can I add to that as well? Small agency perspective. Flip side, we only have one opportunity a year. So like I think like the small five have one opportunity per year, more or less. So there's one window to submit and then you kind of have to wait until the next cycle.

Right.

One of the things you're going to see is that depending on the agency, there are different windows for when you can apply and oftentimes that may dictate as well when and how and whom you can contact also. So a lot of it just going to do your research. AmericaSeed Fund US is a great place to start when it comes to really finding out who to talk to, where. Where to go and who to talk to.

Yeah. And adding on to that just to Give even more specifics for NASA. While our solicitation is open is we're in blackout until the selection selections announced. So for us, the selections were announced until June, around November, December. Start looking for us to make announcements of when our solicitation is released. It could be released from anywhere from, like, December ish to January. And right now, SBIR is getting reauthorized, so that could shift either way. But once. Once we release that solicitation, we're in blackout, and we can't share much. Our scientists and engineers can't talk much. But we also have an ignite solicitation that's live. Just do Google SBIR ignite. The topics are shortened, the solicitation is shortened, meaning that we'll take the number of page count we're adding the page count to. The solicitation is short. You submit a presentation that maybe if you're ranked high, you can present that in front of other judges. In addition to that, we're trying to streamline the review process and all these different things. And so that's our ignite solicitation. We've never done that before. This is the first time we've actually had two different solicitations for phase one out. That's pretty much it. Go ahead.

All right, thank you, Quinton. Appreciate it. April, quick question. Based on what we talked about, we had a question about when is the deadline, period, solicitation period for your. Well, for your cessation?

Yeah, it closes August 23rd, so you have about a month. And I will just. I'm kind of reading the chat too. I think on sbir.gov all the solicitations are listed. Isn't that right, Eldon? So someone I know, it is like, oh, my God. How do I know when this one there is. Go to sbir.gov and they should have all funding opportunities listed there.

Yes. Yes. Thank you. Now, this goes into that application process, that early start. We got a question. I add in, how early in the stage of development do you fund? Because typically, phase one is that prototyping stage, but we know prototyping is different depending on technology. So, Quintin, I'll start with you as far as, like, how early do you fund?

Yeah, great. Great question. I mean, our phase one for SBIR is six months, but STTR is 13 months. So we're just looking for a concept study. We're just looking for you to do a reasonable concept study. I can't really tell you what will be ranked high, but we're not even asking for. For an mvp. But I will tell you for myself, looking at the reviews, what I've seen that the type of technology that did really well in preparation for phase two, they had some really solid modeling and simulation. Some of them even developed a prototype or they started to develop a prototype, but they worked really closely with their core. That's at NASA. If you awarded you work, what we call a technical monitor core, it's not just a contractor person. This person is technical. I was a corps before I came over to start working in the program management office. But that core is going to help you develop something relevant to his or her work. Her work. So this is the key. You can do what you proposed in your proposals. I'm giving you inside information. You can do that. But if you want to look forward to phase two and post phase two, talk to that core and even be willing to change up your entire project that fits something that that person needs. Needs or that you know, that core needs so that that core can say for phase two, I want to evaluate this person's proposal because we need this on our project that's going to Artemis or we need this in our test bed. So you kind of want to make them dependent on you in phase one. So that's just a little bit of tidbit about getting started and how to be successful really moving forward.

Thank you, Quint.

So yes, okay. For nsf, at least half of our population roughly comes from academic background. So they have been through a number of basic research grant experiences. And then we also have some translational programs like Partnership of Innovation I CORE and so forth. So those companies, when they come into SBIR program, may be able to accomplish something in shorter amount of time, like six months. But we actually allow people to ask for anywhere from 6 to 12 months to demonstrate the technical feasibility of the idea. And although we don't fund any commercialization related activity in phase one, we are looking for a proof of commercial viability by the end of phase one. So those things have to run in parallel. But since we are basically focused on translational research, we will accept ideas at any stage of development as long as they meet our review criteria. I probably sound like a broken record, but just look at our review criteria and look at what we are funding and make sure that your particular project is a good fit.

Thank you, Rajesh. April.

Yeah. What Quentin and Rajesh said. Yeah. So phase one, proof of concept, right. I think again what Quentin said, like usually phase one is like some data, like beyond a literature search, like something that shows us that it's got potential. Like, why do we think we want to invest our $100,000 into that phase one? Give us something that shows us that there's some promise and that you have a plan for phase two and a plan to commercialize. Right. We know it's phase one. It's early days, but I don't know. People that only know about the technology usually don't get out of phase one. So we need you to show us that you have a plan for really getting that to market. Even in phase one. We also assign a tpoc, a technical point of contact. It's more like a kind of like a bonus person that likes the topic and wants you to succeed. It might not be as official as NASA's, but that's a great, a great resource to take advantage of. And some, some companies jump on that and make connections and some kind of like don't reach out. And to me, it's the ones that are really that kind of dive in and are hungry that are again, the ones that are going to be the more successful. I had one. Oh yeah. The other thought, Rajesh, right. Review criteria, right. We are, we're the government. Right. We're super process driven. We're going to evaluate your proposal on those review criteria. So definitely look at those and we're going to give you a score based on those criteria. So you need to address each one of those to the best of your abilities to get a score that for us, it gets you in the pool to be considered and then kind of, you know, look, look by topic and a few other criteria. But if you don't get that score in the first place, you won't even be considered for funding.

April, I couldn't have written that segue better myself, could you talk about your review process? Who are you review as we practice this.

This was good. Yes.

So review process, great. So I will just toot EPA's horn to say that we have worked really hard on streamlining our review process. So we're making awards a lot faster these days. We're making them within the, we make the 90 day notification now. So what we do is we do, we evaluate on three criteria like high level and I've said these several times too, but technical, commercial and relevance to topic. So 1/3, 1/3, 1/3. So we farm out that commercial review. Even in phase one, you're going to get a commercial review by someone outside the agency and then experts within the agency will look at the technical criteria, technical strength, and we'll look at the relevance to the topic, how are you really addressing the topic we put out there? How much environmental impact are we going to get? So a lot of EPA review. So again, think about EPA people reviewing your proposal. I think that's a good way to look at it. You're muted.

Quick question before I move over to Verjesh with the same question, because he actually talked a little bit about that before. You said TPOC is that Technical Point of Contact.

Technical Point of Contact. And they or may or may not be super technical, but we stole that acronym from the DoD because it sounds cool.

Okay, Rajesh, can you talk about your review process, please? I know you gave a little bit beforehand, but can you go a bit more in depth again, sort of time frames also? Who are your reviewers as well?

Yeah. So we care deeply about three things that April also mentioned, but it's technical innovation with high level of technical risk, commercial feasibility, and the societal impact. I like to give you a visual think of that as a triple helix. So it's not like three boxes that you put together. They are interwoven. So you create a powerful proposal. Now, in terms of the reviewers, we have external reviewers, so we invite faculty members, industry veterans, previous awardees from our program, and try to get an overall sense of the technical merit, commercial merit, and what the potential societal impact is going to be. Once you submit the proposal, depending on when it arrives in our inbox, we generally accumulate proposal until our submission window closes, and then we try to get a final result to you within six months. So once you submit the proposal, you can't change it, and there's no point in talking to us before that because it's only going to slow us down. So once you submit the proposal, wait for NSF to contact you. Typically, if you are, have you submitted a proposal that is of interest and recommended by the reviewers? We will need more information and we will contact you and ask for that information and then communicate to you what the final decision is. So all in all, I would say our goal is to try to give you an answer within six months. And we do it with the help of reviewers which are external to ns.

Thank you, Quentin.

Yeah. So similar to the other agencies we judge on scientific and technical merit, we talked about your team, your facilities. I talked about that a little bit earlier. We also your team, your facilities and experience and qualifications. We also look at your commercial commercialization potential. And last but not least, we also look at your work plan. So our evaluation criteria kind of sort of changes as you go through the different phases. So At Phase one, even though we look at commercialization potential, we only look at it a little bit because we know that at Phase one, you know, you're just developing a concept study. And you can also apply for what we call our icorps and our TABOR programs to increase your commercialization, potentially increase your commercialization score. Right. And so at Phase two, we judge a little bit more towards the what we call infusion commercialization. So can we use the technology and can it be infused? That's what Infusion is about. And can it be commercialized? Now, at our post phase two program, phase two E, will we provide matching funds? I think up to 350 or 75k CCRPP. If we do it next year, where we provide matching funds, up to 2.5 million. And the phase three, those, we look a lot more towards your commercialization. And in our Ignite program, immediately at Phase one, in Ignite, we're looking more at your commercialization potential. So ours kind of changes. For the regular SBIR program, it kind of changes more towards commercialization as you go higher in the program. However, for Ignite, it's very commercialization focused. It's not the main focus, but it's judged probably as much as Our Post Phase 2 programs are judged with respect to commercialization.

Okay, thank you, Quinton. Now, quick question, because I think I know the answer, at least as far as this panel is concerned. Does your agency offer direct to Phase two? And if it does, could you tell me if there are any different requirements? Because some agencies like DoD and Do offer direct to phase two. Do your agencies offer that opportunity?

So NSF doesn't have that?

Okay, so for svr, for NASA, sbr, our regular SVR program, we do not have it. However, for Ignite, it's kind of yes and no. It's not a direct to Phase two before Ignite program. Again, it has specialized topics. You can check out our website. We ask for your Phase two proposal. Don't quote me on this. Look at our solicitation. I think 120 days into your project. So is that four months into your project? We're asking for your phase two proposal so that we can accelerate the process of your Phase two award to make it similar to a direct to Phase two. Even though we weren't. We don't have a specific direct to Phase two, and that's just for our Ignite program.

Okay.

All right.

Speaking of different programs, I know not everyone here offers sbir, sttr, but for those agencies that do, could you talk about how SBIR and STTR are treated differently at your agency.

You want me to go first?

Yes, sir, Go ahead.

Yeah, so we actually don't treat them any differently. Our review criteria are identical. We mix and match them in our proposals and so forth. So companies that are applying to us for whether they want to apply as SBIR or sttr, it's a completely business decision. And you should definitely look at what differentiates SBIR from sttr. In sbir, you are allowed only one third of the budget to go to outside sources, whereas in STTR, you can actually give up to 60% of the budget to your partner research institution. In either case, at nsf, the applicant is always the small business, not the university.

Okay, thank you, Rajesh. Anyone else?

Well, I was gonna let April. Am I muted?

We don't have. We don't have small agency, we don't have direct to phase two, and we do not have an STTR program. So nothing to add from my point of view.

All right, can y' all hear me now?

Yes, sir.

Okay, great. So we have sttr. There are some slight differences. But sttr, just like Rajesh said, the small business has to be the PI, but for us, for sttr, they must have a university on the contract for sttr, Just to be clear, universities, you can apply with small businesses or research institutions, you can't apply with small business. For SBIR, but for STTR is mandatory. The phase one for STTR for NASA, we allow 13 month period of performance, whereas the SBIR is six month period of performance. We do that because we understand that, you know, a lot of research institutions are a little bit more research oriented. Our numbers or percentages for contractors are similar to that of nsf. I think the look at oscillation, but I think the research institution has to do at least 40% of the work. And I think they could do like up to 6, 60% of the work for STTR, and that's for phase one. I think phase two, they can do like 50% of the work. All this stuff is, in our solicitation, a lot of nuances, but I think those are the things that's different but similar to Rajesh, the reviewing all of those things. You know, they go through the same process. You may have a little bit better chance of winning STTR at phase two because it's generally speaking, less applicants. Obviously that could change next year. But historically, every year in the past, STTR has had less applicants. When we say less applicants, we're talking about, you know, for a particular subtopic, how many Applicants were at phase one. And what percentage can we award at phase two? And those are the things I think that's different for NASA.

Thank you. Oh, no, Regest. Go ahead.

Yeah, I just wanted to again, add to what Quentin just said. Even for nsf, for sttr, you must have a research institution as the partner. And the research institution must perform at least 30% of the work from the budget. And it can go up to 60%.

So it's the same. Looks like it's the same for NASA, nsf. That's exactly how ours is.

Now, Quentin, you keep throwing around this word that begins with C. Contracts. Could you tell us about how contracts with sbir, TTR are different than, say, granting agencies? Or talk about the contracting aspect of sbltr.

Yeah, another great question. You know, we've been doing this so long that it's great that Eldon will ask this question. And so, you know, I wrote tons of grants because I wrote proposals all throughout my graduate school career, you know. But when I got into NASA, you know, then we started writing these proposals. That's grants. But then they were also contract, right? And so for us, for a contract, we want to use your technology, right? And we're gonna use, submit quarterly reports, which when I was writing grants as a graduate student, we didn't really do that. Right, but you submit quarterly reports. And these quarterly reports, what we call demonstration reports. So basically, what you propose in your milestones, remember, work plan is a part of our evaluation criteria. So we, we have it there, we've evaluated and we're going to compare each quarter. Quarterly reports, you know, what did you propose in your work plan? Are you doing that? How much progress have you made? Okay, another thing that's a little bit different that people don't realize. Even though it's a contract, you still have the ip, so. So you own the ip. The small business owns the ip. We don't try to own your ip even though it's a contract. However, I think we get a royalty free use license of the technology for like 20 years. Again, look at the solicitation. I may be a little off, but I'm 99.9% sure that we get a royalty free license use of the technology, which I think is a win win for everybody. Right? Like if we use your technology, you may get a phase three. Again, that's the sole source where we don't have to go through this long contracting process. It's a sole source direct to you contract. We may be able to use that technology that you've developed for us under the SBIR program and say, hey, we want to advance that and we can pay you for phase three. So it's a win win. I think those are the main differences between for us for a grant and a contract.

Okay. When either Rajesh or April like to tackle grants.

So I can say as far as the grants is concerned, we actually are saying that we will never buy anything from you. So why would we fund you? We would fund you because you are coming up with an idea that is going to change the world as John put on his first slide. And we want to make sure that you are totally committed to it. If for example, you have a very strong technical team but you are weak on the business side, that's a problem because we don't fund just technical research for the sake of technical research. We want you to commercialize it also. We are just not happy with a blockbuster idea that is going to make ton of money. Would like to see it. It is actually going to make a significant difference to the society because we are giving you taxpayer dollars free of charge so that you can succeed in the marketplace and change the world. So that's it. That's our goal and that's why we fund you.

That's it. We just want you to change the world. That's our only criteria. So it's kind of funny because we're sort of in the middle. We do contracts, we do everything with contracts, but we are not going to buy it, most likely. So we just. All we do, I say is we identify the problem and then you have to solve the problem and figure out the market. We don't even know if there's a market for this. The onus is on the company to figure out the market for these issues. So kind of in the middle between the other agencies. I will say the only like process difference that I know between grants and contracts is like for us you just have to submit monthly reports and you draw down your contract monthly. So there's like this month monthly reporting where I feel like grants is a little bit more longer term. Usually have a final report at the end or. But we have sort of regular billing and regular monthly reporting.

I can add to that for NSF for phase one, if you get the award, we give you most of the money up front and we leave a little bit of money at the end that you can get reimbursed when you submit the final report. There are no other reporting requirements for phase one. For phase two, it is a tranched payment. So it's a Million dollar award and we give you $250,000 for every six months upfront. So you can spend the money.

Yeah, actually my colleagues reminded me of a little bit different nuance. We have a contract negotiation period. So after you award it for NASA, you go to a contract negotiation period and you all kind of negotiate when the payouts would be after which quarterly reports or which reports. So that's another difference between us and I guess a granting agency.

Thank you, Quinton. And just kind of put a pin in this one. One of the things I want everyone listening to really there are some generalities. Usually when you have a granting agency, their solicitation is usually very open ended. They're research based so you have a lot more wiggle room when it comes to what you propose. And Rajesh really talked about a lot of that open endedness of the NSF application because they're purely about the research. And 99.9% of the time the agency is not looking to purchase whatever you develop. Whereas a granting agency, a contracting agency, NASA, dod, they're looking for specific technology for specific needs because they're looking ultimately if you're successful, to purchase it. So they're going to be very specific as to what they need. So there's not going to be a lot of wiggle room when it comes to what you solicit or what you propose to that solicitation. So those are two things I really want you to take away as far as some of the main difference between grants and contracts. Now we're going to switch to. We have a few minutes left. A couple of the questions on the Q and A. This one goes back to the review and evaluation period. Is there an impact on how we are evaluated if the application is submitted at the beginning or the end of the solicitation period? Do you read applications as they come in?

So for NSF, you know, we are close to 15 program directors and each one does it little differently. Some people who have very well defined subtopics, they, they set up the panels so you may be able to get response faster compared to others where we will wait for the submission window to close and then set up the panels. So as I said, our goal is to actually get you an answer within six months of your application.

For NASA. I simply put no and no. We're not going to start reviewing them early and we're not going to take off points if you turn it in late. But you may want to consider turning in early because some people have problems. Like you know, sometimes we've had firms that, you know, needed to get like, like April mentioned like the duns in or something in that they didn't know about. And it was like, oh, it's going to take a long time to get it in and all these different things. We have to go and apply for it somewhere else. You know, those are cases where it makes sense to get it in a few weeks early just to, you know, make sure that you have time to take care of all of the things that come up, you know.

Yes.

Yeah. Not a lot to add. We definitely wait. We get them all and once the solicitation closes, we look at them all as a single batch. But please don't wait. I mean, I say this, but everybody does. Like we get like 100% of our application applications on the last day. I don't just. It's just human nature.

Right.

But you know, they are clunky government systems. We have people definitely that. And it closes at noon. It closes at noon. If you get it in at 12:01. Sorry. The system won't even accept it. So yeah, please don't torture yourself and do all that work and then mess it up, something silly like that. So just make sure you get it in a little before the deadline.

I would say that, you know, we are giving you funding to de risk your ideas. Why would you risk so much money? Freely available? It's on the table and wait till the last day.

Right.

I agree. I will say this from being that first line of review when it comes to applications for so many years and I literally processed hundreds of applications every single year during my time at usda. You do not want to wait until the last minute. These application systems, when you don't expect them to have issues. They have issues.

That's what I was trying to say.

And sometimes you may not find out until after the deadline is over. I know grants.gov was notorious with that a couple of years ago where you didn't find out until 48 hours afterwards that there was an issue and by then it's too late. Also that way if you submit early, you can go back, review your application and maybe resubmit it with the corrected information information or something extra that you forgot the first time. So never ever wait until the last minute. I always say at the latest, submit a week before the due due date. That way you have time to make any corrections or if there's an error, you have time to correct that as well.

Yeah, and just to be clear, we're not going to look at applications and say, oh, they Submitted early. Let's give them some kudos. I don't think we ever looked at a date. You know, again, I've been on both sides, so. And when I was on the reviewer side, I don't ever remember looking at a data saying, oh, they tearing theirs in early this. You know, let's get warm and fuzzies about the technology. So.

Right. Let's get one more question. Okay. There was one. Oh, there was one asking about the application size. And I know that's always a question as far as the length of the application as well as the content of the application. And I don't see the exact question here, but they cited the Ignite program, Quentin, as maybe a model. And this is a question for all of the panelists. How do you feel about the size of the application now for your organization and do you feel as though maybe there could be more streamlining needs to be done or has it been or has there been any discussion to streamline the application going forward?

Yeah, great question. And I'm going to start with this and hear me out, small businesses, our solicitation says no more than. So we don't want you. If we say no more than 40 pages. I don't remember. I don't know what it is going to be for 20, 23. I'm not saying write a 40 page proposal. You know, just think. I know it's money on the table, but just think about this practically. We want to give you the space you need to describe again, do you have a scientific and technical merit? Is it something that we can fund all agencies, right? Do you have the people? Do you have the facilities? Can it be commercialized? We want to give you the space to describe to us that you can do this. Not just at phase one. Even though we're talking about phase one, we're looking to fund you all the way through. We want to get you throughout the valley of death. These are the conversations that we have in our back rooms. Like, how can we get them through the valley of death? We don't want to like fund SBIR firms. We're not trying to fund firms that just do phase one, Phase one, phase one or phase two. We want this to help our nation. We're investing. When we give money to firms, this creates jobs. It broadens our technology pool, makes us more competitive as a nation, whether it's from a military standpoint or just from a technology standpoint. And so when you write the proposal, just write the length that you need to articulate to us that you can do the work. And so to answer your second question, yes, we could streamline the process. And this is the experiment that we're doing with Ignite. And so Ignite, again, look at the solicitation. I don't have all these things in my head 100%, but I think our. For phase one, you do a white paper. It's like 12 pages. We ask for a presentation, which we're calling it a deck, where you'll present if you're ranked high, if your complete application is ranked high, you'll present in front of subject matter experts that have a commercialization focus. So. Meaning that they not only are technical, but they understand commercialization. We're going to custom pick this group for Ignite. And so for Ignite, we're going to test that concept. Can we have a shorter application? Can we have a shorter review process and still be able to let firms articulate themselves? And so that's why I went into that whole spill about articulating yourselves or describing that you can do the work, that you have facilities, that you have the long term plan and the work plan, because we don't want to make it so small that firms that don't have a lot of experience writing proposals are not able to say everything they want to say. That's why we do the no more than 40 pages. Right. But we give you a lot of space because we're trying to accommodate firms that have experience writing proposals and firms that don't have a lot of experience. And so again, Ignite, even though it's a shorter. A shorter, you know, number of topics, it's a less number of topics. Ignite will be. It's a pilot program, so we're not sure if we're going to do it every year. Ignite will be our chance to determine if we streamline this. Is this going to best serve our firms?

Thank you. And now we're just about out of time. April, I want to know if you could talk on that really quick and also give your final words about getting started.

Well, I think I'm just going to jump on Quentin's enthusiasm for a readable proposal. We definitely follow the review criteria, but convey that enthusiasm. Make it, have someone else read it and see if they can understand it. Sometimes I'm reading a proposal, and it's all these numbers and graphs, and I can tell they know what they're talking about, but I'm just not quite sure what the impact's going to be. So I would just say make sure that enthusiasm and impact is conveyed in a way that people can understand.

Thank you, April. Or yes, final thoughts.

Yeah. For nsf, very first page in the proposal is an elevator pitch and that's your chance to really grab the reviewers attention and then you can provide all the necessary details. As Quentin was talking about. We care about all those details too so the reviewers can actually assess your proposal with some confidence. And our maximum page limit is 15 so please don't exceed that. But you can even submit it shorter proposals as long as you have covered all the essential points.

Thank you Rajesh. Thank you all. Rajesh, April and Quentin for taking time out today for this panel. I want to make sure that everyone knows that we have a robust suite of panels and also agency pitches over the rest of the week. So make sure you go to AmericaSeed Fund US for a total schedule of all the events that are happening this week. Thank you all for joining us.

Okay.