TWO Essential Skills to Write a Winning SBIR Grant

So these SBIR and STTR grant funding opportunities are meant to support science and tech startups and other small businesses by giving them the funding they need to pursue research and development efforts that have really strong commercial potential. Now, to prepare a really strong application, the team's going to need technical expertise to prepare a really rigorous research and development strategy. And this usually includes identifying research questions, developing a research plan, conducting experiments, and analyzing data. Usually these technical expertise are provided by a member with a PhD or a strong research background. However, the technical feasibility alone is not enough to secure funding from the SBIR program. The proposed innovation also needs to have commercial potential, and this requires other skill sets like business acumen, financial analysis, marketing expertise, the ability to identify other markets, and to develop a go-to-market strategy. And the commercialization expertise is typically provided by someone on the team with a really good business background or someone with an MBA.