FAQs
The questions founders actually ask before they commit: what it costs, what happens if the application is declined, how much of your time it takes, and why an expert team beats writing it yourself or running it through an AI tool. Every answer has its own link, so you can jump straight to the one that matters.
Pricing depends on the program and the stage you are at. An NSF Project Pitch is a much smaller piece of work than a full Phase I or a Phase II proposal, so we quote per submission rather than selling a retainer you do not need.
You get the number on the first call, before any work starts. There are no percentage-of-award surprises later and no charge for the consultation itself.
Federal competitions are competitive by design, and no honest advisor can promise an award. What we can do is make sure the submission fails for reasons outside your control rather than for a fixable one: a weak Project Pitch, a hypothesis with no go/no-go milestones, a commercialization section that reads like a pitch deck.
If a submission is declined we go through the reviewer comments with you and decide whether a resubmission is worth it. Many of our wins are second attempts where the first was written without support.
Expect roughly 6 to 10 hours of founder or CTO time across a Phase I proposal, mostly in a technical kick-off, one or two review rounds, and sign-off. We do the drafting, structuring, budget narrative and compliance checks.
Registrations (SAM.gov, eRA Commons, SBIR.gov) sit on your side because they are legally tied to your company, but we tell you exactly what to start and when, because these are the most common cause of a missed deadline.
Plenty of founders do, and some win. The cost is usually four to six weeks of the technical founder's attention during a period when they should be building, plus a learning curve on a review culture that differs by agency.
Our team has written and won Project Pitches, Phase I and Phase II submissions across NSF, NIH and DOE, and members of the team have reviewed applications from the other side of the table. That is the difference between guessing what reviewers score and knowing it.
Because reviewers are specialists and generated text reads exactly like generated text: plausible structure, no technical specificity, no honest treatment of risk. It is the fastest way to look like every other applicant in the pile.
We are not a platform. Your submission is written by a named PhD-level specialist in your field who is accountable for it, and we use no template that another applicant to the same call is also using.
An NSF SBIR Phase I is up to $305,000 with no equity given up, and a successful Phase I opens a Phase II of up to $1,000,000 plus matching supplements. For a pre-seed deep tech company that is often a full year of runway and a strong technical validation signal for later investors.
It is worth chasing when your technical risk is genuine and the work fits an agency's mission. If it does not fit, we will tell you on the first call rather than sell you an application.
An NSF Project Pitch takes about two weeks to prepare, with an invitation decision usually inside three weeks. A full Phase I proposal needs six to eight weeks of build time, and agency review typically takes several months from submission to award.
The practical implication: the date you need to start is far earlier than the deadline itself.
For SBIR you generally need to be a US for-profit small business with under 500 employees, majority owned by US citizens or permanent residents, with the principal investigator primarily employed by the company at the time of award.
Our 30 second eligibility check covers the main gates, and we confirm the details on the call.
We sign your NDA before any technical detail changes hands, and we do not work with two companies competing for the same topic in the same cycle.
Talk to us about your federal funding plans and we'll help you make it happen through effective, results-driven grant writing.
