In this third video of a three‑part series, Stacy Chin demonstrates how startup founders can submit a Department of Defense (DoD) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I proposal through the Defense Innovation Marketplace (DSIP) portal. She begins by emphasizing the need to first identify a solicitation and gather all required materials into a structured folder (Volumes 1‑6). After converting all Word or editable files to PDFs, she logs into DSIP via Login.gov and completes the mandatory firm certifications, ensuring each form reaches 100 % completion before proceeding. She then creates a new proposal, fills out the proposal summary (duration, technical abstract, keywords, proprietary page references), assigns herself as principal investigator and corporate official, and uploads the technical volume. Next, she builds the cost volume, selecting standard budget components, entering example salary and fringe rates, and confirming no overhead or cost‑sharing. Stacy proceeds to upload supporting documents (contractor certification, commercialization plan, foreign affiliation disclosures, joint‑venture eligibility verification) after converting them to PDFs. She reviews the required training certification on fraud prevention, acknowledges it, and finally clicks the certify button to submit the application. Throughout, she offers practical tips, references a KeepYourEquity.co SBIR sell sheet for budgeting, and encourages viewers to seek guidance when completing forms. The video ends with a call to action to contact KeepYourEquity.co for assistance and to view parts 1 and 2 of the series.
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Hey guys, welcome back to the channel. This is part 3 of our 3-part series on how to secure DoD SBIR funding for startup founders. Today I'm going to walk you through how to submit a DoD SBIR Phase 1 application through the DSIP or the DSIP. And if you haven't done so, make sure to check out part 1 and part 2 of this series where I give a brief overview of the whole entire DoD SBIR program and walk you through how to find the right opportunity for you and your startup to apply for. So let's jump behind my screen and get to it. Before submitting an SBIR application, you need to identify an opportunity you want to pursue and understand the requirements to submit an application. Be sure to check out part 2 of this series where I walk you through how to find a solicitation, understand the application requirements when preparing your proposal. Say under topics in topics Q&A, found this topic. This is an Army solicitation. I want to review the Army requirements. Through the DoD BAA solicitation. After reading the RMA solicitation instructions, going through the components, I like to prepare a folder on desktop that has all the requirements to help me prepare and organize for the solicitation. Here, folder solicitation, Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3, Volume 4, 5, and 6. I like to take the templates that they either give me or prepare myself each of the respective places. Say I spent weeks to prepare this application and I'm ready to go and submit. Just take the Word documents or the editable files, turn them into PDF files. This is the format that they're going to accept. Same also with supporting documents as well. Also in Volume 3, I have a KeepYourEquity.co DoD SBIR sell sheet to help with budgeting, where we're going to input these numbers into the portal in a little bit. So once I have all this ready to go, I like to go back to the DSIP. I'm going to go into login and registrations. I'm going to log into the DSIP through login.gov. I have a whole other video that goes through all the company registrations through my email address. With that, I am logged into the portal. So now I'm going to go home. There are a couple of things we want to keep in mind here. You must complete the firm forms before you even start your Phase 1, Phase 2, or Direct-to-Phase-2 SBIR application. Here are also all the different components of the solicitations available, and here are the STTR components. So before we even jump into this, let's first go over the firm forms. Firm certificates, I'm going to go through based on what makes sense for me. Make sure when you go through this, you speak to someone that can guide you, fill this out properly to make sure it is reflective of you and your startups. So are you a small business? Yes, I'm just gonna say 1 employee here. I'm gonna put in my SBC ID, then I'm gonna click— no, no, no, yes, no, yes, no, unlisted, false, no. All right, so I'm going to say I understand, then I'm going to sign. Every time you fill out one of these forms, you want to click save and then hit Once you hit save, if you— you will see the firm certifications are 99%. To get this to 100%, you must click the submit button, and that will get you to 100% and allows you to move forward. You cannot submit a proposal if all the green circles are not at 100%. So now let's go for the audit information, save and submit, and then the company commercialization. So now I went through the forms, everything is at 100%. I'm not going to read and submit and prepare my Phase I application. All right, so say I want to apply for an SBIR Phase I. I go to solicitation information, topics and topic areas, and let's say I want to apply to this topic right here, A254-0. I'm going to go to— I'm going to click on the DOD SBIR 2024 topic area. Just say proposal title Stacy Chin proposal just for this example. Create proposal leads you to this page here, and as you see, similar to the first page, we have to go through each of these forms and fill them out until the circle goes to 100% and it's fully green. So let's go to the proposal summary as the first get-go. So first thing we're going to do is proposal duration date. Sometimes they go from 6 to 12 months. We're going to put 6 months just for this purpose, and then we're going to type in the technical abstracts, the anticipated benefits potential commercialization applications, page numbers that are proprietary, and list of keywords. Here I like to write this on a Word document and then copy paste this into the technical abstracts here. So I'm going to say just copy and paste draft here, then copy and paste draft here. And then we can say, say pages 2 through 5 has proprietary information. I'll put that there too. And let's just say radar can be a one of the keywords for the application. We're going to click Save. And remember, we're going to click Submit next. 4 or 5. We'll click Save again and hit Submit. The next thing is Proposed Certification. This will get filled out down the road when we do the cost volume. So we'll hold off there for now. And we're going to go through these questions. And again, make sure you seek advice to pick the right options that is the best fit for you and your startup. Yes. Alright, once that's filled out, save, then submit. And then we'll fill this out later on. Alright, next one is the contact information. I'm going to assign myself as the principal investigator, and then I'm going to assign myself as the corporate official and authorized contract negotiator as well. And then again, we're going to hit save and hit submit, right? Next is the technical volume. So as I mentioned before, we're going to back to our folder with all the topic and then we're going to Phase 1 volume and we're going to click and drag it and upload this here. Once that's been, we're going to click save, submit. And that brings us to the cost volume, which is the budget. Here I'm going to pick on all the standard components that are required and anything here that might be relevant to the proposal. So again, it's, it might be a good idea plan this out before you get to this stage to make sure you know exactly what'll be in your— All right, I'm going to click on partial payments, save, and then a nice, um, tracker to remind you that you're allowed 150 $1,000 for the cost line. So say I'm going to give myself, uh, a salary, and let's just say I'm an aerospace engineer for this example here. Fringe, let's just say I'm $100 an hour for roughly $100 there. Here again, this is an example. Anything I— in the budget will also need to be explained in this letter. We'll click on Save and Continue. Let's just say there's no overhead costs. And again, plan this out to make sure the budget is relevant and reflects what you propose to do in your application. Okay, I'm just put zero for now, just for this example. And we're gonna say no and no. Excellent. I'm gonna say there's no cost sharing here, no profit rate, just for that example. And again, once you— when you do this budget, even though with Morning at $10,000, you want to make sure you reflect the direct costs and indirect costs be correlated to your proposed efforts. So we're gonna leave this as is just for this example. I'm gonna hit submit. Really? And that brings us to the Commercialization Report. Here, since we filled this out on the first page, we don't have anything here. We'll just click continue. And then here comes the supporting documents. And you turn them into PDF files before you start uploading them into the portal. So first thing we're going to do is the Contractor Certification. Click and drag here. And then we're going to add the Commercialization Plan, which is in the Other category. And then we're going to add the Disclosure of Foreign Affiliations. Also in the, uh, also in the other category, and then finding the verification of eligibility of small business joint ventures, which is right here. And as I mentioned earlier, each of the different supporting documents, so make sure to read the topic PDF file so that you are aware of those requirements. So once everything's uploaded, again, these are just blank files for this example in particular. We're going to hit save and submit, and then we're going to go through the training certification. Here are some slides to review, and it looks something like this. Make sure to read this thoroughly so you understand what the definition of fraud is and how to prevent fraud. Once you go through this document, you're going to click you acknowledge that you accept all of the content requirements. Save and submit. Go back and submit that. And finally, the last document— last form, Disclosures of Foreign Affiliations and Relationships to Foreign Countries. So we're gonna go through this document again. Again, this is just an ex— Once that's done, we're going to click submit. And if you see back in the COVID sheet here, because we did the budget already, in this area, this has been filled out to 100%, which is fantastic. We will click on just certify in the last box here. You're going to say that I am the CEO, proceed. You can have an opportunity to look at your application once again. You click on all of these boxes and then they give you an opportunity to review your application. You're going to click the box here. And then the last but not least is to hit certify and that will lead to the submission of your SBIR application. So I'm not going to do that just because it's just an example, but hopefully that was a helpful tutorial of how to submit your SBIR application. In the DSIP for a DoD Phase I application. I hope this was a helpful guide on how to navigate the DSIP and submit a full Phase I application through the portal. And if you're looking for help on your DoD SBIR application, make sure to reach out to us at keepyourequity.co, and then we can learn how to best support you in your non-dilutive fundraising journey. And of course, if you found any of these tips helpful, please like and subscribe to our channel so that you learn new ways to keep your equity throughout your fundraising journey. And if you haven't done so, make sure you check out part 1 and part 2 of this 3-part series where I give a brief overview of the DoD SBIR program and walk you through how to navigate the DSIP and find the right opportunities for you and your startup. And with that, thank you so much for joining me today, and I'll see you in a video very soon.
