3 SECRETS To MAXIMIZE Your NIH SBIR Award! #SBIR #smallbusinessgrants#grantwritingtips #startups

Congratulations on winning your first NIH SBIR award. It is such a great accomplishment, and I'm so excited to share these secrets with you so that you can get the most out of this award. So in this video, I'm going to share 3 things that you should keep in mind so that you can fully optimize your SBIR award. Make sure you stick until the end of this video so that you can learn how to best engage with the NIH agency, extend your contract, and even get more money. And I'm sure these secrets are going to give you a competitive edge of how you can maximize your SBIR grant. So you don't want to miss out. Hey guys, welcome back to the channel. I'm Stacy Chin from KeepYourEquity.co, and our mission is to help startup founders secure non-dilutive funding from federal programs called the SBIR and the STTR. And these are really critical programs to support science and tech founders to get them the funding to pursue the much-needed R&D efforts. So if you're interested in learning more about these SBIR and STTR programs, I'll leave a link in the description to another video below. So I'm sure as a founder, you dedicate your blood, your sweat, and your tears to your startup. So receiving your first NIH SBIR award is a great way to validate that you are going on the right path. However, simply receiving this SBIR award is just the beginning. So if you want to know how to best optimize this SBIR award, you have to understand what opportunities there are for you. But luckily, I have these 3 tips that I'm going to talk about today that would just do that. And these are great tips to keep in the back of your mind just in case you run into some troubles during the project period or need more resources to help you bring your product to the market. And luckily, these tips can actually help you to build your credibility with investors or even to get more funding down the road. And if you see my other videos, you'll know that the SBIR program is crazy competitive. The award rate is usually less than 10%, especially if you're going for a Phase I for the first time. So therefore, if you've got an award, you want to maximize all the opportunities as best as you can. And by fully optimizing this award, you can position your startup for long-term success and growth. And with that, let's jump into my tips of how you can maximize your SBIR award by best engaging with the agency, extending your contract, and even to ask for more money. But before we do so, if you can take a moment to like this video and to subscribe to this channel, I would greatly much appreciate it since this helps us out a lot. And by doing so, you'll get access to a wealth of knowledge of how you can secure non-dilutive funding throughout your fundraising journey for your business or your startup. And of course, don't forget to check out our website at keepyourequity.co where you get access to more resources, templates, and advice of how you can secure non-diluted funding. All right, let's get into it. So my first best kept secret is to be best friends with your program officer. So if you got an, an SBIR award from the NIH, you'll likely get assigned a program officer from the funding agency that gave you the grant. And this program officer is an NIH staff member that is responsible for overseeing your grant and to provide you with guidance and any advice if you need it throughout your proposed period. The program officer will also serve as your primary contact with the NIH agency, and you should be communicating with them periodically throughout your proposed efforts and to keep them updated with your progress on the project. And this NIH program officer is also responsible for reviewing your progress reports, helping you to navigate the NIH system, and also providing feedback on your research. So how do you find who is your assigned NIH program officer? When you get an NIH grant, you get something called the Notice of Award, or the NOA. And this NOA is a document sent to you by the NIH that outlines all the details of your awarded grant. And this includes the amount award, the start and ending dates, and the contact information of your program officer. So, what should you do with this information? First, you want to email the program officer so that you can introduce yourselves and also thank them for their support. Here, you want to start establishing a really productive and positive relationship with your program officer, and your goal is to try to maintain that throughout your proposed project period. And that's because not only can program officers help you to navigate the NIH system, but they are also experts and can give you valuable advice to help you progress within your research plan. And that's just the start of what program officers can do. These program officers also bring a long history of accomplishments, and they also bring a wealth of knowledge. They want to see you succeed in your proposed efforts. And also, these program officers know exactly what's going on behind the scenes within the NIH and can also recommend other upcoming funding opportunities that they think might be a good fit for you to pursue. And additionally, if you run into any problems during your proposed project period, your program officer is there to help and to give advice. So you want to keep your program officer informed of any significant developments or even delays throughout your proposed project period because they're going to be great resources to help you overcome these obstacles. And these are just some examples of how NIH program officers can help you within your SBIR project. So in order for you to maximize your SBIR award, take the time to engage with your program officer to make sure that you have a very positive and productive relationship moving forward. That brings us to our second secret, which is to be aware of the no-cost extension or NCE. And this no-cost extension can serve as a really important tool for PIs and startup founders when complete their projects within the set timeframe of their NIH SBIR award. And if you see my other videos, you'll know that for an NIH SBIR Phase I, you can propose for a project time period of 6 to 12 months and then up to 2 years for a Phase II award. But as with many things in life, things always take longer than expected. Sometimes experiments just don't go as planned and you gotta repeat them over and over again. You might have to pivot to a different strategy. Or your collaboration or partnership just fell through. Unfortunately, these things do happen, and the NIH understands that. And so it is quite likely that you might need more time in order to complete what you propose in your SBIR efforts. And that's when the no-cost extension might serve as a great tool for you. So a no-cost extension is an extension of a project period of an awarded NIH SBIR grant that allows the principal investigator to continue working on the project beyond the original end date. And although you can't request for any additional funding, whatever's left over from that project period can be pushed over towards this new project period deadline. So in other words, the no-cost extension allows the PI to extend the project period to complete the proposed work and to achieve the project's goals without occurring any additional costs. So in case you're in a situation where you think you're going to need a no-cost extension, you want to submit this request at least 30 days before the original end date of your proposed project period. And before you make this request, you also want to bring this up to your program officer just so they are aware of this as well and can advise you how to move forward. And requesting a no-cost extension is just as easy as clicking a button. However, there may be times where you might need to justify for this request or to propose a revised budget and budget justification and extension of the proposed completed work. And these extensions are usually granted for up to 12 months. So that means if needed, you can extend your project period for at least another year. And in some cases, you can even request a second no-cost extension to even extend the project period for another 12 months. Especially in these situations, you definitely want to bring in the program officer so that they can advise you how to best proceed on that front. Now, it's also important to note that the NCE is not a way to get additional funding, and the PI is expected to continue working within the original proposed budget. However, if you're curious on how you can get more funding in addition to your SBIR award, this is where my third secret comes to play. My third secret is to be aware of TABA. The NIH TABA program is is designed to support startups by offering them business and technical assistance to support them in their R&D efforts and to help them go towards commercialization. You have to be an SBIR awardee in order to qualify for the TABA program, but this is a great way to get additional funding on top of your SBIR award. So TABA stands for Technical and Business Assistance, and this program is offered by the NIH as part of the SBIR and STTR programs. NIH SBIR Phase 1 awardees can request up to $6,500 of TABA support, and Phase II awardees can request up to $50,000 of TABA support. Now, some examples that you can use TABA funding for includes assistance with product sales, intellectual property protections, market research or validation, development of regulatory pathways, development of manufacturing plans, and access to technical and business literature available through online bases. Before you can even request TABA, you first have to identify a third party that qualifies to offer TABA and then hash out a plan of what these funds will be used for. And here, this is another great way you can engage with the program officer, since they can provide you a list of qualified TABA vendors. Next, you'll need to submit an application requesting for this TABA funding support, along with justification and breakdowns what the funds will be used for in relation to your SBIR project efforts. And again, this is another example of when you should reach out to the program officer so they can advise you what types of documents you need to prepare in order to complete this application. And this is because the TABA program might require different documentation from agency to agency. And so with that, that wraps up my 3 secrets of how you can maximize your NIH SBIR award. Thank you so much for watching until the end of this video. I hope you found these tips helpful. If so, please take a moment to like this video and to subscribe to this channel so you can learn other ways to keep your equity throughout your fundraising journey. Thank you so much for watching till the end, and I'll see you in a video very soon.