3 Simple Ways to Make Your SBIR More Competitive

Here are 3 simple fixes to make your SBIR application way more competitive, and I'm shocked that many founders don't even do these simple things. First, make sure the team section proves that you can actually do the work. Most founders just list impressive titles but never really explain what those people can actually do in the project, and the reviewers want to see a direct line between someone's expertise and a specific part of your proposal. So for instance, if you're developing a diagnostic tool, don't just say you have a PhD in bioengineering on the team. Rather, show they published 12 papers in biosensor validation, and then explain how they can lead the clinical testing phase of your SBIR grant. Second, foreign collaborations will kill your applications more than ever before. And that's true even if those collaborators aren't paid. Any unapproved foreign involvement can lead to immediate rejections, and we're seeing this way more than ever, especially for the National Institutes of Health, or NIH. So if you have international partners, you need to explicitly have written approval before you submit, not after, not pending, but before. Third, government registration timelines will destroy you if you wait. A majority of SBIR Phase 1 applications either get rejected or never get submitted, not because the science was bad, but because registrations were never approved. For instance, the SAM.gov registrations alone can take up to a couple weeks, and if you have an SBIR application due in a couple weeks and you haven't started your registrations, you might already be too late. So start those processes right now, not when you're putting the final touches to your proposal. And all these 3 things aren't exciting fixes, but rather they can actually make the huge difference between whether your proposal is getting reviewed or even just auto-rejected before anyone reads your application. So if you're pursuing SBIR grants for your non-dilutive fundraising strategy, make sure to save this host or send this to another founder so you guys can keep your equity throughout your fundraising journey.