Eleven (11) Federal Agencies participate in the SBIR/STTR[1] Program and release “funding opportunities on a regular periodic basis throughout the year.”[2] While SBIR.gov provides guidance on the process and program[3], choosing a topic can feel like navigating a vast ice cream parlor with endless flavor options. To make this endeavor a bit more digestible, I’ll share three (3) strategies using this ice cream analogy.
Basic Flavors: Core Technology and Familiar Government Clients
Imagine the classic ice cream flavors: chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. These represent topics correlated with your company’s core technology. You might even have a favorite “ice cream parlor” – preferring to work with a specific Agency, like the Department of Defense (DoD), or the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In the context of the SBIR Program, this means using the Keywords and Filter functions to Search Open Topics and selecting a topic(s) corresponding with what your company does best, for a Government Agency with which you’ve worked.
If your company has not worked for the Federal Government, then first choose an Agency that is in sync with your company’s purpose/mission. For example, if your company is in the energy sector, then focus on the Department of Energy (DOE). Using the Keywords and Filter functions to Search Open Topics, select the Agency then review for topics that correspond with your company’s focus.
The key is to find a topic(s) that aligns with your organization’s capabilities and fits the specific needs of the Agency you are targeting. Just like sticking to your favorite basic flavor from a well-known ice cream parlor, creating innovative technology while working with a familiar client, or client with a similar “flavor profile” to your company’s mission, can provide a sense of stability and predictability.
Complex Flavors: Adapting Technology Across Agencies
Now, picture more adventurous flavors like Rocky Road or Jamoca® Almond Fudge. These represent a hybrid approach to SBIR topics and involve research to adapt existing capabilities to a different Agency. For instance, you might be a developer of sensor technologies for the Department of Defense and are interested in discovering how to those sensors could support the Department of Energy, or a software developer for NASA that is exploring the opportunity to work with the Department of Education. Using the Keyword Search, focus on discovering topics in areas related to your core competencies from Agencies with which your Company has not worked. This process is like creating new and exciting ice cream combinations with existing flavors. It’s about taking your core technology and seeing how it can be reimagined for another application, while meeting the unique needs of different government entities.
Radical Flavors: Advancing Technology in Unusual Ways
Then there are those truly unconventional flavors, like honey jalapeno pickle or whiskey bacon caramel. These represent an eccentric strategy for choosing an SBIR topic where your company investigates using its core capabilities and existing technologies in completely new and radically innovative ways. For example, an agricultural equipment company might study using its skills and machinery to support the Department of Homeland Security[4] (DHS), or a telescope company researches taking its optics technology to solve Health and Human Services’ (HHS) problems. This advanced strategy works well for established SBIR Companies. The process is the equivalent of combining unexpected ingredients to produce a groundbreaking new flavor. It’s about pushing the boundaries and using creativity to tackle novel challenges.
Bonus: Enhancing the Flavor
Enhancements, such as adding chocolate syrup or rainbow sprinkles to ice cream, are akin to reviewing past SBIR topics with the filtering function, and encouraging new employees to match SBIR topics to your company’s existing products and/or services. The first is like sampling older or seasonal flavors to understand what’s been done before and creates an opportunity for your company to identify gaps and opportunities. The second provides a path for new employees to grasp the ingredients and recipe(s) for government research and development contracting while learning about your company’s portfolio. By linking the variety of old and current SBIR topics with your company’s expertise, new complex and desirable flavors may be created.
The Scoop
Choosing an SBIR topic can indeed be as fun and complex as selecting an ice cream flavor. Whether you’re opting for the basics, exploring complex combinations, or daring to be exotic and radically innovative, the goal is to find a topic(s) that aligns with your company’s capabilities and solves real problems for Government Agencies.
By embracing this analogy, you can make the process of choosing an SBIR topic both more enjoyable and strategic, ensuring that your next “flavor” of innovation is an appetizing fit for the goals and capabilities of your company and the Federal Government.
[1] “SBIR” throughout this article is used to refer to both the SBIR and the STTR Programs.
[2] SBIR.gov https://www.sbir.gov/participating-agencies and https://www.sbir.gov/topics
[3] This blog post does not address the SBIR/STTR program itself. For more information on the program “Skyway” 2 trainings and 3 podcast episodes at Skyway Acquisition: GovCon Edge – SBIR Fundamentals (December 2019) and SBIR-STTR Program (January 2020), and Episode 273 – What is a SBIR?, Episode 303 – Why SBIRs?, and Episode 393 – Contracting for Innovation with Alan Apple.
[4] The Alchemy of Air is the story about the solution to an agricultural problem also being one that was used to make gunpowder and high explosives.