SBIR/STTR Phase II Proposal Writing Workshop

Overview

The SBIR/STTR Phase II Proposal Writing Workshop is sponsored by the City of Chandler, JDA Software, City of Scottsdale, and City of Tempe.

The SBIR Program can support business and product strategies with funding from the federal government, as an alternative to or in coordination with other forms of business financing.

SBIR/STTR Phase II workshops will focus on SBIR/STTR Phase I recipients (only Phase I awardees are eligible to apply for $750,000 Phase II grants). This course will be an in-depth eight hours and will also focus on refining an entrepreneur’s strategy to be competitive in this phase.

Having won an SBIR/STTR grant or contract, a company turns its attention to writing a winning Phase II proposal representing $750,000 or more of early stage product development funding – without equity dilution. This eight-hour course is designed to provide entrepreneur-authors with a winning Phase II grant writing methodology via specific in-class exercises and interactive feedback from instructors to help them to plan and then complete each section of a Phase II SBIR/STTR proposal.

* Visa, Mastercard and Discover accepted.

**AZ Tech Council members receive a 10% registration discount. *MEMBERSHIP WILL BE VERIFIED*

Program

• The course will concentrate on two critical portions: the research plan/work plan and the commercialization plan. The course assumes that the companies have applied for or been awarded at least one Phase I effort on the SBIR Program and are confident they will be invited to submit a Phase II proposal.
• The workshops are conducted in facilities where computers with Internet access are available for the participants so they can interactively work with instructors in exploring the various websites describing the agencies’ unique Phase II requirements, sources of information, as well as instructions on any required electronic submission of proposals. The workshop also uses the web to perform initial market research for the commercialization plans. To optimize the course, participants are urged to download agency outlines for Phase II proposals and the related instructions, prior to class, and bring those materials with them as well the resumes/CVs of key personnel, business publications such as company financial statements (kept private), company business plans (kept private), brochures, etc.
• Proposal outlines from various agencies will be used and each major proposal section will be discussed, with methods, techniques and in-class exercises that specifically address the content for each of these proposal sections. The majority of the course will focus on two major areas key to winning: the research plan/work plan (and how one integrates knowledge of the state of the art with the work plan) and the commercialization discussion (we are assuming that the principal investigator and the team are strong). Participants examine specific steps to attract commercialization partners. Participants are given tools, techniques, methods and examples of administrative, financial and project management aids and samples of materials that ease doing business with the government. In addition, staffing strategies will be explored since a Phase II effort typically requires new and additional skills.
• At the end of this workshop, the participants will have the essential elements of their Phase II proposals outlined and have the benefit of ‘struggling with the key winning elements’ and receive feedback and advice from a multiple-SBIR Phase II awardees CEO and experienced entrepreneurial coach and instructor.