40 Ways to Improve your SBIR Proposal!
Hi, I’m Nicole Toomey Davis. I am a serial entrepreneur and my company has been awarded over $1.2 million in SBIR funding. I have also served as an SBIR reviewer on something like 14 review panels (as best as I can keep track of!) As an experienced Phase I and Phase II SBIR reviewer, I have seen so many silly and unnecessary mistakes kill a proposal, that I started writing them down to help other proposing teams improve their chance of SBIR success!
The NSF says that they award about 10-15% of proposals, see #8 in the list. However, in my experience, on a panel reviewing 10 proposals, there are usually 1 or 2 proposal that are “fundable”. VERY rarely are there 3. All of the rest of them are unfundable, usually for the dumb reasons.
Let me repeat that. The majority of proposals reviewed by the NSF (and other SBIR agencies) are UNFUNDABLE.
They’re not even in the running. They never had a chance at getting an SBIR award – even after spending 200 or more hours of intense work creating the proposal. And usually, they are unfundable because of the kinds of mistakes I have outlined in this free report! Just by avoiding these mistakes, you put yourself in that very top tier of fundability. And being in that tier makes it far more likely that your proposal will be funded!
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It is hard f
or proposing teams to imagine that these simple mistakes can eliminate them from consideration, but the reviewers are very experienced. Typically review panels include current or former SBIR PI’s or award recipients, as well as traditional research grant recipients (university researchers), experienced consultants and entrepreneurs, depending upon the agency. They know what to look for, they know what makes a winning team and they often review many proposals over many years, so they know what the Program Director is looking for.
These are specific real mistakes from real proposals and I wrote these lessons down right away! First I got to 10, then 18, then 30, and I quit at 40. These are all “real world” mistakes that I have personally seen as a reviewer that have eliminated otherwise quality proposals from consideration! Let me repeat that, these simple mistakes ELIMINATED a proposal from even being considered for funding. Remember SBIR funding over all Phases can be worth over $1.5 million in non-dilutive funding (or even more under some circumstances)! Bummer for all those teams who lost out – don’t be one of them. Sign up below to get your copy of our free report detailing all 40!
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