SBIR/STTR Assessment The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs are highly competitive programs that encourage domestic small businesses to engage in Federal Research/Research and Development (R/R&D) with the potential for commercialization. We encourage you to complete the Assessment below to determine your company’s ‘fit’ to the SBIR/STTR program. Is your company a good fit for SBIR/STTR Funding? Answer all the questions below. If you answer “no” to any question, you will receive recommendations as you progress and on a summary page with a listing of other potential resources available to help you with the recommendations. If you answer “yes” to all these questions, you may be a great fit for SBIR/STTR!To meet basic eligibility for SBIR/STTR all potential applicants must be....(Required) A for-profit entity Located in the U.S. Majority (more than 50%) owned & controlled by U.S. citizens or permanent residents Fewer than 500 employees, including affiliates Sorry You do not meet one or more criteria, and will not be eligible to pursue SBIR/STTR funding until your company meets all the criteria. Visit https://www.sbir.gov/applicant for the full list of criteria. There are other organizations that provide funding to businesses for growth. Please see MTI Partners and Agencies & Associations for information.Great, you meet the initial criteria! Continue with the assessment to see if you’re a fit for SBIR funding by clicking next. Is Research & Development (R&D) required for a new product, process, or service?Is the R&D effort a $500,000 to $1+ million project requiring three or more years of development? AND Is the technology so innovative that it might NOT work?(Required) Yes No This may indicate that the proposed idea or project is not innovative enough or does not meet the scope of funding for SBIR/STTR. Try expanding the scope or innovation of your idea. Market Driven CriteriaCan you concretely describe your prospective customers and their specific needs/wants?(Required) Yes No Try conducting customer discovery to better understand the potential customer and their needs and wants.Can you explain how you would meaningfully add value for these customers compared with competitive options?(Required) Yes No We recommend conducting customer discovery to better understand the differentiators of your new product/process/service idea.Is the revenue and profit potential large enough to sustain a business?(Required) Yes No Look for another business model or market opportunity with more attractive financial projections.Is the market opportunity sufficient to justify $1+ million of investment in R&D?(Required) Yes No Consider other funding opportunities that could provide a positive return on investment. Innovation CriteriaCan you articulate that the product/service you would develop meets customer needs?(Required) Yes No Further develop your product concept and value proposition.Is the new product more than just an incremental improvement to an existing product in the market?(Required) Yes No Consider other funding opportunities that value lower risk innovation.Can you articulate a product development roadmap?(Required) Yes No Identify R&D steps and milestones that you would need to complete to have your new product/process/service be ready for market introduction.Are there any steps in your development roadmap where technical risks might cause it to fail?(Required) Yes No Your project may be considered an “engineering” project and would be a better fit for other funding opportunities. If you’re unsure about the technical risks, do further research of the literature/competition to identify others who have tried this previously.Can you design a 6-12 month experiment with $100k to $275k that would prove your idea will work?(Required) Yes No If the feasibility experiment exceeds this budget, identify some preliminary “proof of concept” work that could be completed now that would position you to be able to prove feasibility in 6-12 months with $100-275k. If that’s not possible or you don’t know where to start, consult technical expertise, find another approach that’s less technically challenging to solve the customers’ problem, look for other funding sources, or consider another business opportunity. You may be a good fit for SBIR/STTR funding! Good news! The answers you provided indicated that your project may be a fit for the SBIR/STTR program. MTI has a strong Technical Assistance Program (TAP) to provide support to help you prepare a strong application. If you’d like to find out more and talk with a TAP team member, please submit an interest form to get started. Click here to submit an interest form. Or fill out the form below to have the interest form link emailed to you to start later. See feedback on what you can do to improve your fit for SBIR/STTR funding Sorry, you may not be a good fit for SBIR/STTR funding right now. Based on your answers, we’ve put together recommendations on what you’d need to do to be a better fit. Fill out the form below to receive a summary of all our recommendations in a printable format, which we will email to you as well. Name(Required) First Last Phone(Required)Email(Required) Are you a Maine based business?(Required) Yes No EmailThis field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
