We have gathered the answers to some popular questions below. Don’t see your question here? Contact us, and we will be happy to help!
We have written several winning academic research grants. Why should we hire someone to help with an SBIR proposal?
Proposals for SBIRs, STTRs, and other federal funding opportunities for small businesses differ substantially from academic proposals in terms of audience, content, and style. SBIR review panels include researchers, practitioners, and small business developers who bring diverse expertise and perspectives to the review process, and writing a compelling, competitive proposal that satisfies each of these groups requires a skillful balance of storytelling, research design, and commercial context. We help our clients identify the right story, the right scope of work, and the right path to market to be competitive for funding, and then we craft each component of the proposal to speak to the diverse interests of the reviewers. As our success rates show, hiring DeBusk & Fife provides a big advantage over submitting on your own.
We have several potential products. Can you help us decide which one is the best fit for SBIR funding?
We do a cursory analysis as part of our client selection process, and depending on the number of potential products and their current stages of development, we can often make a recommendation prior to contracting. For clients who have many potential products, products at a very early stage of development, or products with undefined regulatory and R&D pathways, we offer our Consulting services. In this short-term, multi-month engagement, we review your technology and available data, help you prioritize products for grant seeking, identify relevant funding opportunities, and advise on commercial and regulatory steps you can take to better position your projects for success. Leveraging our enhanced understanding of your technology and commercialization potential that results from this process, we provide a discount on the upfront project fee for the first proposal you decide to pursue. We recommend requesting a free consultation to determine which service is best for you.
Our product could target many different indications. Can we submit proposals for all of them at once and continue development with the ones that get funded?
As long as each project includes a scientifically distinct scope of work, NIH and a few other funders will allow simultaneous submissions. However, we recommend that you prioritize indications based on your business objectives, FDA guidance, etc., and then choose a grant seeking strategy that maximizes opportunity while preserving competitiveness. Through our initial vetting process, we will review your product, the various indications, and the relevant preliminary data. Based on this information and additional considerations informed by our experience with the funding organization(s), we will then make a recommendation regarding simultaneous submissions for your product.
Can we get a discount on multiple projects?
Our upfront project fees reflect a balance between the costs necessary to operate our business and the limited number of projects we are able to execute in each cycle. We limit the number of projects to ensure each client receives the attention we feel is required to give them the greatest chance of success. Therefore, as a general rule, we do not offer discounts for multiple projects. However, in the rare case where two projects have substantial time-saving overlap in the same or adjacent grant cycles, we will consider a discount on the upfront project fee when both projects are contracted (and paid) at the same time. In addition, our Consulting services include a discount on the project fees associated with your first pursuit because these consulting activities can reduce the burden of preparing your initial submission. If you would like more information on any of these options, please contact us for a free consultation.
Do you charge a success fee?
Yes, we do. When DeBusk & Fife contracts with you, we are committing to much more than writing and submitting your grant proposal. We become an integral part of your R&D team, focused on helping shape the path you take to develop and commercialize a product. In every project, we make intellectual contributions that, in our experience, improves the quality of your research and the resulting data; reduces inefficiencies in research, regulatory, and commercial planning; reduces your time to market; and preserves more of your valuable patent life and earning potential. Small businesses routinely pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for these types of contributions from scientific, regulatory, and commercial advisors, commonly supported through dilutive funding. We are committed to helping you stretch your investors’ dollars by charging a lower upfront project fee and allowing you to pay the larger success fee for our intellectual contributions only after we secure you an award. Importantly, DeBusk & Fife alone bears the risk of this approach, and while we will always try to do our very best for you and your company, many clients appreciate that the success fee gives us a strong incentive to competitively navigate every step of the process (from planning through the receipt of an award).
Can we pay the success fee out of the grant?
Federal law generally prohibits paying for grant writing services out of the direct or indirect costs budgeted in a grant award. However, SBIR and STTR project budgets allow for the inclusion of a “fee,” for for-profit companies, generally up to 7% of the award. A company may use these funds however it wants, including to pay someone who helped prepare the original application. In addition, some states have established “Phase 0” SBIR proposals and SBIR/STTR matching programs to help small businesses with the cost of grant writing services. Some grantees rely on these resources to pay success fees, and others use funding from other sources. DeBusk & Fife recommends that you consult and/or hire an accounting firm that is adept at navigating federal funding to ensure that you comply with all requirements related to its use.
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