Gail & Jim Greenwood, Greenwood Consulting Group, Inc.

Copyright © 2001 by Greenwood Consulting Group, Inc.

We were asked recently by a Phase I SBIR winner when his firm should begin working on its Phase II proposal. Our response was "yesterday." In other words, it is never too early to begin thinking about your Phase II project.

If you are just now applying for Phase I, you should envision how it will relate to the Phase II project. The Phase I work must definitively conclude that your innovation is feasible, and it must provide a logical jumping off spot for Phase II. Also, if the agency to which you are applying has a Phase I option (e.g., Navy, Army), the option must define tasks that are beyond proof of feasibility and precursors to the Phase II tasks. All of this suggests that you need to have a pretty good idea of what Phase II will look like before you even write your Phase I proposal.

If you already have a Phase I award, then you need to begin preparing for the Phase II submittal. If you are working with an agency that requires you to be "invited" to submit a Phase II, then your first goal must be to convince your technical monitor that you are worthy of such an invitation (DOD components typically do not accept Phase II proposals except from Phase I winners from whom they have been invited, while most other agencies allow any Phase I winner to submit a Phase II). A number of factors are involved here—obviously, your Phase I will need to prove feasible or you can pretty much expect to not be invited. Other factors might include how critical your project is to the agency, the quality of the work you have done in Phase I, and whether the technical monitor felt you were a pain or a pleasure to work with in Phase I.

Phase I winners also need to take to heart any criticism received in the reviewers’ comments of their Phase I award. Obviously any such shortcomings were not enough to prevent you from getting a Phase I award, but reviewers expect you to address and resolve any problems they pointed out in your Phase I proposal so that they are non-issues when it comes to considering your Phase II proposal. Didn’t ask for a debriefing after getting word of your Phase I award? Shame on you, because you missed a great chance to get feedback—you might ask your current technical monitor if he/she can provide that information to you even though the deadline for requesting it has probably passed.

What else can a Phase I winner be doing to prepare for their Phase II proposal? You need to identify and secure any expertise, equipment or facilities that you will need for Phase II that you didn’t need for the Phase I feasibility study. You need to refine greatly the commercialization strategy that you hopefully outlined in your Phase I proposal (by the way, if it doesn’t look like there’s much of a market for your innovation, you need to decide if this lack of Phase III opportunity suggests that you should not pursue Phase II). You need to keep current on the state-of-the-art in your technology and related areas so your knowledge and expertise don’t become outdated. If you are planning to submit a request for additional Phase II funding that requires a third-party match, now also is the time to be identifying potential sources of those dollars. However, in most cases you will not want to commit to any source until you advance the state of your technology—the reduction in technical risk will reduce the "price" you have to pay for that outside money.

One other thing that you need to do during Phase I in preparation for Phase II: you need to find out if other companies were given Phase I awards on the same topic or problem area and, if so, you need to find out everything you can about them and their approach to the agency’s needs. It is not unusual, for example, for NASA or DOD to fund several Phase I projects for each topic in their solicitations. You are, therefore, in competition with the companies that submitted these other proposals in terms of who may get the nod on a Phase II award. You need to be prepared to convince the agency that, if it is going to put all of its eggs in one Phase II basket, that basket should be yours.