Gail & Jim Greenwood, Greenwood Consulting Group, Inc.

Copyright © 2002 by Greenwood Consulting Group, Inc.

Earlier this year, we addressed the topic of commercialization as it applies to an SBIR/STTR project. Since "Commercialization" is the theme of the upcoming National SBIR Conference (October 28-31, Burlington, VT, www.SBIRworld.com), we thought we would revisit this big and very important topic.

We routinely see four very weak commercialization discussions in Phase I SBIR/STTR proposals. We will call them "I don’t know," "I don’t know and don’t care," "Throw it at the wall and see what sticks," and "Toilet paper on shoe."

Whether you mean to convey that message or not, that is what comes across to a reviewer when you don’t talk about the Phase III commercialization opportunity and strategy in your Phase I proposal. Novice SBIR proposal writers think that commercialization is not something they have to deal with until Phase II or maybe even later. In reality, the reviewer wants a comfort level in the Phase I proposal that you are committed to commercialization and are already thinking about how you will pull it off. No, you don’t have to have it all figured out, but demonstrating that you are formulating a strategy and defining the market opportunities is important. By the way, you can win big brownie points if you can include a simple, short letter from a potential customer or commercialization partner that basically says "if this innovation works out, we’d be interested in being part of Phase III."

There’s a subtle difference between this error and the first one. The first one conveys the message that "I just haven’t really thought about it yet" whereas this one says to the reviewer "No, I haven’t thought about it and I really don’t have time to waste on it because there is so much fun technology stuff to think about right now." Or another good one is "I’m very smart and therefore I am a first rate researcher—any simpleton can commercialize what I accomplish in Phase I and II and I’ll find such a moron when I get done with the hard science." As you might expect this conveys an attitude of arrogance and indifference, neither one of which is going to help you with the reviewers.

In this problem area, the proposal writer does not really know what goes into commercialization, but has a number of commercialization-related facts or ideas that he or she wants to talk about. The writer then proceeds to throw these facts and ideas at the reviewer, often in what seems to be a random fashion, hoping that they will say something that resonates with the reviewer. Unfortunately, to the reviewer who has some commercialization and business savvy, what they see is a mishmash of miscellaneous facts and ideas that do not add up to a comprehensive or cohesive commercialization discussion.

Everyone knows what that means—it is an embarrassment. That is what happens to a proposer who innocently makes an error or two in their commercialization discussion that unintentionally and often unknowingly embarrasses them in the eyes of the business savvy reviewer. Common examples of toilet paper on shoe in SBIR/STTR proposals include:

Assuming technical papers and professional meeting presentations are adequate to commercialize something

Assuming that you can capture an arbitrary fraction of a market just because it is a small fraction

Assuming that the technical superiority of your product will override all other factors that go into the buying decision

Assuming that commercialization will just "happen" after Phase II without much forethought, hard work, or courage.

Commercialization is a critical part of the SBIR/STTR programs, and it must be part of your Phase I proposal. The agencies are increasingly concerned about your ability to get your innovation into the market place (whether it is selling to the agency or someone else). As Roland Tibbetts, father of the SBIR Program (NSF, Retired) has said "think as long, hard, and deep about commercialization effort as you do about the R&D effort."