Stacy L. Chin flags two SBIR/STTR mistakes: the PI must spend over 50% of their time at the small business when the grant starts, which trips up university spin-outs. Choose SBIR if your company does the work alone, STTR if you need university or research-institution help.
The first trap is the PI employment requirement. Your PI must be primarily employed by the small business upon time of award, meaning that more than 50% of the professional efforts must be with the company, and this trips up a lot of university spinouts. The second trap is choosing the wrong program. If your company can perform most of the work independently, maybe the STTR program is often the right fit, but if a large portion of the research still depends on the university or research institution, then maybe the STTR is a better pathway.
