Dot Product

This week I’m attending the SBIR/STTR National conference in Albany, NY. For those not familiar with the SBIR/STTR program, it’s a federal grant and contract program designed to help small businesses develop technology and transfer tech from research institutions into the commercial sector. Generally, both programs have two phases, where Phase I is a feasibility study, and Phase II involves producing a prototype. Phase III is for commercialization. The awards for Phase I are somewhere from $50k - $100k for 6 - 9 months, while Phase II is for up to $750k for up to 2 years.

So far, the conference has provided some important nuggets of information I had not gleaned through reading the solicitations or through other workshops. The frustration is that those nuggets are buried in HOURs of content that is not so revolutionary… and for those of us already crunched for time from competing concerns, it can be hard to sit still and sift for gold.

Still, it’s a good program, and hopefully my next startup will be able to take advantage of the program to fund some development work. Sure beats dilution through outside investors!