Carl Nelson Consulting, Inc

Carl Nelson, Consulting

phone 202-841-1914carl@carl-nelson.com SBIR for high tech innovators

Consulting on Getting and Using SBIR

NOTE: The website is 25 years old and still relevant to SBIR. In particular, the NEWS section is a 25 year history of a long list of companies that played SBIR and have attracted the attention of the American business press.
Is SBIR a worthy program? Whether SBIR is a success story and a wise investment of federal R&D funds depends wholly on the mindset of the observer because the necessary financial facts lie wholly in the records of thousands of private companies. And the federal agenies have no equity in whether your business lives or dies.

Carl Nelson Consulting helps small high-tech firms with new technology get and use federal government R&D funding for innovations from the Small Business Innovation Research program (SBIR). To be eligible you must be (or become) a mostly US-owned for-profit small (under 500 employees) firm doing R&D in the USA. The money is free - no repayment and no equity taken. You propose on a government specified schedule for a small award (Phase I) $100-150K to show feasibility of your idea. If that works, you can propose some serious money (Phase II) $1M or maybe more to develop some kind of prototype. Then you are on your own. For more details, see Doing SBIR.

Qualifications

25 years helping about 100 SBIR proposers and hopefuls

ten years as sole decider of 10,000 SBIR proposals at Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (Star Wars), now called Missile Defense Agency, and one cycle for the DARPA Technology Reinvestment Program

37 years in Department of Defense, mostly R&D,

degrees in Chemical Engineering (Rensselaer Poly), and years of rocket science

more .... publications and references

Consulting On

getting and using SBIR

getting a life after SBIR (commercialization);

dealing with government (ugh);

who and where are the SBIR firms;

why you can't get SBIR for anti-gravity

the competitive world of SBIR

SBIR Government websites

Defense Department the biggest; mostly safe military mission stuff.

National Institutes of Health second biggest, funds human science from cell chemistry to mending behavior. Next round: variable and frequent

National Science Foundation SBIR's originator, funds a hodge-podge of science.

NASA big; funds safe space science.

Department of Energy a bit quirky.

And smaller agencies: Agriculture, EPA, Commerce, Transportation fund a few

Small Business Administration - policy poobah, does not fund SBIR.

Non-Government websites

Ask Yourself

What Do You Want To Be? besides a government contractor

What's So Compelling About Your Idea? and if so, Why Government?

Does Time Matter?

Does Business Matter as Much as Science?

What Will You Do If It Works?

Do You Mind If Government Owns Your Idea?

Can You Eat Just One Potato Chip? many companies live on SBIR, some with hundreds of millions of SBIR ddollars

Concepts you need

Competitive Advantage

Figure-of Merit

A credible Market (could be government)

A compelling story

Nelson's Subjects

Getting SBIR

If You Don't Know SBIR

How does it work?
Can you get some?
Which half of what you know is wrong?
Do you need me?

If You Already Have SBIR Scars

Does your Phase 2 proposal sell your idea?
So you lost, now what?
Can I schmooze anybody to help you?
How much do you need me?

Contract Negotiation: What are you entitled to? What do the SBIR rules really say? How does government think? Can you keep the prototype?	Presentations: Does your language undercut your story? Should proposals sound like mystery novels? Can you write a great sentence with verbs? Can you write a great sentence with verbs?
Research and Development: government R&D; organization and strategy; commercialization and dual-use; government R&D policy	Small Business America: Where are the 700 companies with BMDO SBIR? Which of the 2800 proposers really have something? Does the government do what it says it intends?