hello everyone and welcome to this
presentation
my name is scott dockum and today i'm
going to be talking to you about
understanding the importance of
commercialization and business planning
a nasa perspective
ideation point solution and market
stimulation
what does that all mean particularly
when you're applying to nasa
under the sbir and sttr rules or the law
the requires us to consider commercial
potential
in making selections for sbir and sttr
awards
nasa does this in three ways we have
ideation and this is to encourage the
formation of ideas or concepts that can
meet nasa mission needs
we have point solution solving one
particular nasa problem
point solutions are widely used to fix a
problem or implement a new innovation
quickly
and we also call this infusion we also
have market stimulation
creating a demand for the innovation
both in nasa
and outside of nasa you'll often hear
these called
dual use technologies during the
solicitation development process
as we're developing our sub-topics we
ask our sub-topic
authors to identify how they envision
the sub-topics
meeting one or more of the categories
above
the goal is to ensure that innovations
that are submitted the program
have the ability to address different
markets while also meeting
nasa missions so this overall meets the
requirements for the sbir and sttr
program
why commercialization and business
planning is important
small businesses that apply the program
need to understand and develop their
commercialization and business plan
early
we actually recommend that you start
thinking about this as soon as possible
even at phase one and some of the
questions that you're going to need to
ask yourself
are can my business be successful and
sustainable if my innovation becomes
part of nasa's industry or
nasa's technology supply chain or even
if the innovation leads to a mission or
program infusion
will i need to consider moving the
innovation beyond nasa to achieve
sustainability of the technology
and also of my business should i
consider
or i'm sorry should i identify other
non-nasa markets
such as other federal agencies other
commercial markets etc
these are all very important questions
that you as a business owner
and you developing the technology
you need to consider nasa's sbir and
sttr
program provides several
commercialization opportunities as well
we have post phase two funding
within our program and these provide
additional funding to support additional
research and development for the
innovation and scale up
to be ready for potential opportunities
such as infusion
we also have phase 3 opportunities
within the program as well
and these typically infuse the
technology immediately into
programs and missions here at nasa
so understanding these things are
critical as small businesses start
planning at the early stages to
determine their ability to commercialize
and capitalize on the sbir investment
that nasa is making at both phase one
and phase two
how does nasa evaluate commercialization
and business planning at phase one
so at phase one uh we um
we basically select proposals based on
the most advantageous research and
development path
that addresses the subtopics that are
found in the solicitation
nasa looks for proposals that have the
best scientific and technical merit and
shows strong promise to prove
feasibility
also looks to see how the proposals
provide a benefit to nasa's interest
including both nasa and non-nasa markets
so there is a commercialization aspect
to a phase one
although we recognize that the technical
merit
and the actual pulling together that
science
that you need to do to prove feasibility
or that proof of concept
is very important to phase one but there
is some commercial aspects that we do
look at each proposal is valued and
scored on its own merits using these
factors
and you'll see there we've got obviously
the scientific
and technical merit feasibility we also
have experience in qualifications and
facilities
and the effectiveness of the proposed
work plan those are all very key
elements of the proposal
we also asked for commercial and
potential commercial potential and
feasibility at phase one so we are
looking at that and we want to
understand
what are your thoughts how do you plan
to move this forward
uh particularly if you get a phase two
uh in the future
and then also we look at price
reasonableness under the proposal as
well
one of the things to consider here um is
that new for 2021
nasa is implementing what's called a
technical and business assistance
program
also known as taba and at phase one
uh nasa is encouraging awardees to use
taba funding to develop a
commercialization and business
plan which will be required with a
submission
of a phase two proposal there is funding
available for you to hire a vendor
to actually go out and help you develop
this commercialization and business plan
and this is what we are encouraging our
phase one firms to do
if they receive an award i would
encourage you to go over and take a look
at the other presentation
that is found in this same section here
it's
titled overview of nasa's technical and
business or taba
program and it'll give you some really
good information on how you can use
those funds to help develop your
commercial and business planning
at phase one
how does nasa evaluate commercialization
and business planning at phase two
so you've completed your phase one
you're now ready to submit a phase two
and one of the things that you need to
understand is that we have
a requirement that you submit a
commercialization and business plan
at phase two so phase two
proposals are reviewed by a committee of
outside consultants familiar with nasa
technologies
and external commercial markets as they
review your commercialization and
business plan which again is required
as part of the proposal uh they're going
to be
doing this with the understanding that
they have
a good background on nasa technologies
and commercial markets when they review
these things what they're going to be
doing is they're going to provide nasa
with an assessment of the ability of the
proposing company or your firm
to commercialize their technology
outside of nasa
and to become a sustainable provider
provider to nasa
so you need to have this really figured
out and provide this information
since we are looking at it in the
proposal
the other thing we're going to do is
we're going to provide the company with
an assessment of their plan by giving
advice for improvements and how to
recognize
essential additional potential for
commercialization opportunities
the commercial reviewers review all
parts found in part 7
of the phase 2 proposal and that is what
is
the actual commercialization and
business plan for a phase 2 submission
what are some of the things we're
looking at here we really
want to understand the ability of the
company to commercialize the technology
based on
do they have a good understanding of
both the internal and external
marketplace
have you done any market
segmentation do you
clearly understand market size the
target customers
have you looked at the competitive
landscape do you really understand the
barriers to
entry for this innovation and technology
technology that you're developing
under a nasa sbir
ability to demonstrate a viable plan to
address and penetrate the market
so do you have good pro forma revenues
have you identified possible risks and
discussed mitigations
and then ability to carry out a
commercialization plan do you have the
right staffing
or capitalization to do this do you have
any capital commitment from outside
sources so are there actually people out
there or firms or organizations
who are actually ready to step in when
your phase two is completed
and provide additional funding
to continue to see the innovation move
forward
have you looked at intellectual property
protection this is a big deal
particularly when you're developing
something that is brand new and
currently not part of the current state
of the art
you want to make sure that you're
protecting yourself so that you've got
some ability to move that forward
without other people taking that
intellectual property from you
are you looking to obtain mentoring and
or assistance to help you
move forward and make sure that you're
able to carry out the commercialization
plan
and then also looking at cash flow and
balance sheets you know
are you sustainable are you able to
continue to move the tech
the the um your business into
uh you know into the realm of being able
to move forward
and be sustainable a high commercial
score
under all of these factors means that a
company has identified and understands
the addressable market
the company has provided a viable plan
to address the market
and the company has a capitalization
plan and potential to carry out
that plan inside in the solicitation we
actually provide
information on how we conduct these
reviews and you can find that
information there
under section four of the solicitation
a couple of things that we get questions
on quite often are these letters of
capital commitment
i thought we would spend just a little
bit time describing how this works
there's two types of letters that we
will often see within a proposal you
have
a general letter of support and then you
have letters of capital commitment
let's start with the general letters of
support first typically these are
letters that come from outside parties
who
just have an interest in the technology
however they're not actually
going to provide funding and or
financial resources to continue to see
the research
and or see the innovation move forward
letters of support typically come from
folks who say i really like this
technology i think it's really cool
or you'll also see letters of support
coming in from like congressional
members
and other other types of
organizations those are things that
we're not interested in at this stage
particularly for commercialization and
business planning
and if those are submitted we typically
won't review them we actually discourage
those we don't need to see those
what we do want to see however's are
however is letters of capital commitment
letters of capital commitment and or
funding support
are considered as part of the evaluation
process
and these letters should specify the
level of funding commitments
other sources to be provided and any
funding contingencies or conditions
that come into play for that resource
in addition we want to know what is the
timing of the funding being made
available to
the small business so these are
really good things to have and can
really strengthen
your commercialization and business
planning letters of commitment must be
signed
by a duly authorized representative
of the outside funding source as well as
a small business with the authority to
obligate the funding
when those two things show up it really
strengthens the proposal and it clearly
indicates that there is a market for
this technology
and that's exactly what we're looking
for as we move things through the
program
okay just to shift gears a little bit
here um some of the other
things that you need to be thinking
about as you're thinking about
commercialization
and business planning is what are these
other opportunities so
you get to the end of your phase two
there's additional opportunities for
additional funding to continue the
research
and continue to focus in on that
commercialization aspect
so if you need additional funding a
little bit more time these are some
opportunities you want to consider
so as part of that you know developing
that plan
you really need to be thinking about
these opportunities early on even at
phase one
and that's where i mentioned earlier
that taba could actually help you start
thinking about how you might approach
uh trying to get these additional funds
through these additional programs
the nasa sbir program and sttr program
has three initiatives for
supporting its small business partners
beyond the basic phase two award
we have what's called the phase two
extended or phase two e
essentially this is a contract option we
also have phase two sequentials
and we also have what's called a
civilian commercialization readiness
pilot program or ccrpp
you can find out more information on
each of these programs for eligibility
application deadlines matching
requirements and
a whole host of other information by
visiting the website that's posted here
another thing that you can also do is
consider applying for i-corps
or nasa i-corps program this is an
excellent opportunity
when you are applying at phase one and
this will provide you with a lot of
information on how to develop that
commercialization and business plan that
is required for your phase two
submission
the nasa sbir sttr program has partnered
with the national science foundation or
nsf
to offer this i-corps program and
essentially what i-corps was founded on
was focusing
on educating teams of individuals
on how to translate a technology from
very early stage
innovation or maybe even from the
laboratory
and getting it into the marketplace and
they do this
through a customer discovery process so
as it says here it's all about customer
discovery and validating your business
proposition
having those key elements understood is
really
really crucial to understanding how to
move your technology forward and
commercialize it
participation in icor requires selected
companies to conduct in-person
interviews
with potential customers and buyers and
then you report back to nsf on these
meetings that you're having they provide
you input
and it just continues to help you grow
and understand how to move forward
under this program what you'll also be
doing is selected companies
are required to take i-corps based
training during the duration the program
so under your phase one it's six month
period performance
and what will happen is you'll be given
a training grant
to actually go through the training with
nsf conduct your customer discovery and
then
when you're finished you'll report out
how things went and
whether or not you unders were able to
identify your
market and your business proposition
at the end of the phase one contract all
that work would have to be completed
and that's really simple we have a lot
of our firms that go through this
program
and do very well the program is
described further
here at this website and if you go there
you can
understand how we move through the
process of requesting
you requesting for i-corps and we also
provide this information
in our solicitation so with that
that is all i have for today thanks for
watching this presentation if you have
additional questions please reach out to
the ioc
staff they should have the ability to
capture an email from you and or you can
also contact the
nasa sbir help desk so with that
i wish you a good day and thank you for
participating in this presentation