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SBIR  Proposal Writing Basics: Love Letters

Gail & Jim Greenwood, Greenwood Consulting Group, Inc.  

Copyright © 2011 by Greenwood Consulting Group, Inc.

A very good way to differentiate your SBIR/STTR proposal from other s is to include at least one letter of support from a third party. Such letters can add a lot of credibility to your proposal, in two important respects. First, if they come from people who know the market into which you will be entering in Phase 3, then they show that your project has commercialization potential.  And second, letters that address the Phase 3 potential of your innovation shows that you are focused on commercialization as the goal of your SBIR/STTR effort—and that’s very important, since commercialization is one of the four objectives of the SBIR/STTR programs.  

Let us be clear: these are letters from companies or organizations that are supporting the notion that your SBIR/STTR innovation, when converted to product or service in Phase 3, has potential for being a commercialization success. Therefore, we are not talking about letters from academic, scientific or engineering experts attesting to the niftiness of your technical innovation.  We are talking about letters from (as National Science Foundation suggests)  potential customers, funding sources, or strategic partners.   Strategic partners, in this context, refers to third parties that might license or otherwise acquire your SBIR/STTR innovation so that they can take it to the market place.  

We’ve been asked what such a letter should include. It should not be more than one page, and cover something like the following:  

1.  State who the letter is coming from, touting their position in this market place or otherwise showing their          knowledge and/or qualifications that makes their commercialization opinion credible

2.  State your company name, and briefly summarize  the third party’s awareness and understanding of your SBIR/STTR innovation

3.  Make a positive and compelling statement about the value or importance of the innovation within a certain market (or application, if it’s coming from an end user, such as in a military program)

4.  If the writer is willing to commit anything to help move forward your SBIR/STTR innovation, then the letter should say so: funding, licensing, putting it in their catalog or product line, or providing a test environment are examples

5.  Add any caveat necessary to #4, such as making the commitment contingent on you achieving certain milestones or your innovation “not being bypassed in the market place”

6.  The author should offer to take a phone call or email from the agency to which you are sending this proposal if there are questions about their support or commitment

7.  Include a signature, and indicate the position held by the writer  

 While a good support letter adds credibility to your proposal, a bad letter detracts from it. Here are a few things to avoid a bad letter:  

• 1.  Show a recent date—anything more than a month or two before the proposal due date loses credibility

• 2.  Show a date—only thing worse than an old date is no date

• 3.  Put it on “official” letterhead—reviewers are leery of letters on blank paper

• 4.  Letters from consultants or universities are not credible if these parties are subcontractors on the proposal.       However, a letter from a potential Phase 3 partner, which you are including as a sub on Phase 1 or 2 to help in transitioning the innovation from your lab to their production line, is very credible

• 5.  Generic letters that are not specific about your SBIR/STTR innovation or its application,  or which fail to specify the agency to which your proposal is being submitted, are less effective

• 6. If you have more than one support letter, then each should be unique in its format and content. Two letters with verbatim wording are obviously written by one person, and the reviewer assumes it was you.

    To that latter point: why would YOU be writing the letters for these potential funders, customers, and strategic partners? Actually, that is a smart strategy, for two reasons. First, it helps you control the message so that the letter says what you want it to say. Second, it is easier to get a third party to provide a letter of support to your proposal if they don’t have to write it from scratch, but  only have to edit what you provide them, and then put it on their letterhead over their signature.