The Neutrino Donut is working with a startup in the evaluation of the market for their analytics technology.

The Neutrino Donut recently participated in an NIH grant review program. Our focus was on the commercialization process for Phase 2 applicants. A few pointers for our readers.

1. Engage a product manager and market development expert in your grant process. You need the expertise of people who understand how to take a project into the marketplace.
2. Understand the budget process of your clients. A $150K software project will be part of a long approval process. A $5K software project can be sold many times within an organization under the department discretionary fund.
3. Understand the buying process of your clients. A single person often may not have full budget / technical / process authority to purchase an item.
4. Labs – If you technology goes into a lab, where does it fit in the process? If you are attempting to do a single blood test, you need to justify why a full blood panel does not cover your interests.
5. You need team members in the grant who will be part of the marketing / product development process.
6. Letters of support should not be from your consultants.

The science team gets to vote on the grants. So does the commercialization team on the Phase 2 grants. The goal of the program is to create a business and make the technology sustaining. Spend the time up front to manage this process and demonstrate how the business will operate in the future.