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Small
Business Resource Links
The
following sites provide links to information
that may be useful for small businesses.
The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA)
was created by Congress in 1953 to help America's entrepreneurs
form successful small enterprises. Today, SBA's
program offices in every state offer financing,
training and advocacy for small firms. At the
SBA web site you will find information about
starting a business, writing a business plan,
patents and trademarks and other related information.
The site also offers shareware to help early
stage companies to set up their operations.
ACE-Net is the Angel Capital Electronic
Network that helps small companies to locate
"angel" investors who are interested in early-stage
investment opportunities. There are also links
to online training modules.
Central Contractor Registration (formerly PRO-Net)
is an electronic gateway of
procurement information -- for and about small
businesses. It is a search engine for contracting
officers, a marketing tool for small firms and
a "link" to procurement opportunities and important
information. It is designed to be a "virtual"
one-stop-procurement-shop. Register your company
at this site to get access to their resources.
TECH-Net is an electronic gateway
of technology information and resources for
and about small high tech businesses. It is
a search engine for researchers, scientists,
state, federal and local government officials,
a marketing tool for small firms and a potential
"link" to investment opportunities for investors
and other sources of capital. This Internet-based
database of information contains Small Business
Innovation Research (SBIR) awards, Small Business
Technology Transfer (STTR) awards, Advanced
Technology Program (ATP) awards, and Manufacturing
Extension Partners (MEP) centers. It is a free
service for those seeking small business partners,
small business contractors and subcontractors,
leading edge technology research, research partners
(small businesses, universities, federal labs
and non-profit organizations), manufacturing
centers and investment opportunities.
The SBA is
the coordinating agency for the SBIR and STTR
programs and its web site is a good place to
start when learning about the program from a
general perspective. However, the SBA does not
issue its own solicitations and does not award
funds, though it collects solicitation topics
from the ten participating agencies and publishes
the information at http://www.sbirworld.com/.
SBIR and STTR information can also be found
at www.zyn.com/sbir/. Find more information
about the SBIR and STTR programs under "SBIR
links."
Technology
Related Resources
National Tech Transfer Center (NTTC) Founded in
1989, the Robert C. Byrd National Technology
Transfer Center (NTTC) is the federal laboratory
site which provides information on the technology
transfer and commercialization industry. This
is the agency through which companies can be
connected to federal laboratories conducting
research in their area of interest. Guided by
its vision to aid economic development through
the mapping of technologies needed to the federal
technologies available, NTTC offers a complete
portfolio of products and services that enable
American businesses to find technologies, facilities
and world-class researchers within the federal
labs and agencies with which they can partner.
The core capabilities
of NTTC are significantly enhanced by the NTTC Washington Operations
office, which supports the Missile Defense Agency's
technology transfer program, and by the affiliation
with Wheeling Jesuit University
and the Center for Educational Technologies,
with its classroom of the future and video production
facilities.
Start with
the Frequently Asked Questions
or the Annual Report
to get an overview of NTTC. Learn about their
clients, including NASA, U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA), Missile Defense Agency,
and the Department of Veterans Affairs
(VA) and check out some of
the NTTC News Releases.
From there you can also read some of the Success Stories
in which they have participated in a quest for
a better U.S. economy through
the application of best practices in technology
transfer and e-commerce-based economic development.
Advanced Technology Program (ATP)
The ATP is a unique partnership between government
and private industry to accelerate the development
of high-risk technologies that promise significant
commercial payoffs and widespread benefits for
the economy. Although the ATP makes no special
allowance for small business, the results of
the program show that small and mid-sized firms
in fact are very successful in the rigorous
ATP competitions.
The ATP views
R&D projects from a broad perspective –
its bottom line is how the project can benefit
the nation. In sharing the relatively high development
risks of technologies that potentially make
feasible a broad range of new commercial opportunities,
the ATP fosters projects with a high payoff
for the nation as a whole – in addition
to a direct return to the innovators. The ATP
has several critical features that set it apart
from other government R&D programs:
- ATP projects focus on the
technology needs of American industry, not
those of government. Research priorities for
the ATP are set by industry, based on their
understanding of the marketplace and research
opportunities. For-profit companies conceive,
propose, co-fund, and execute ATP projects
and programs in partnerships with academia,
independent research organizations and federal
labs.
- The ATP has strict cost-sharing
rules. Joint Ventures (two or more companies
working together) must pay at least half of
the project costs. Large, Fortune-500 companies
participating as a single firm must pay at
least 60 percent of total project costs. Small
and medium-sized companies working on single
firm ATP projects must pay all indirect costs
associated with the project.
- The ATP does not fund commercialization
and product development. Private industry
bears the costs of product development, production,
marketing, sales and distribution.
- The ATP awards are made
strictly on the basis of rigorous peer-reviewed
competitions. Selection is based on the innovation,
the technical risk, potential economic benefits
to the nation and the strength of the commercialization
plan of the project.
The ATP partners
with companies of all sizes, universities and
non-profits, encouraging them to take on greater
technical challenges with potentially large
benefits that extend well beyond the innovators
– challenges they could not or would not
do alone. For smaller, start-up firms, early
support from the ATP may be the difference between
success and failure. To date, more than half
of the ATP awards have gone to individual small
businesses or to joint ventures led by a small
business. Large firms can work with the ATP,
especially in joint ventures, to develop critical,
high-risk technologies that would be difficult
for any one company to justify because, for
example, the benefits spread across the industry
as a whole.
Universities
and non-profit independent research organizations
play a significant role as participants in ATP
projects. Approximately half of the projects
include one or more universities as either subcontractors
or joint-venture members. All told, there are
more than 150 individual universities participating
in ATP projects.
ATP awards
are selected through open, peer-reviewed competitions.
All industries and all fields of science and
technology are eligible. Proposals are evaluated
by one of several technology-specific boards
that are staffed with experts in fields, such
as biotechnology, photonics, chemistry, manufacturing,
information technology, or materials.
Financing
Options
Angel Network (Early Stage Investment Capital) The
Angel Capital Electronic Network (ACE-Net),
an innovative Internet-based listing service
providing information to angel investors on
promising small businesses seeking to raise
$250,000 to $5 million in equity financing.
This program, sponsored by the Small Business
Administration's Office of Advocacy, seeks to
use the Internet as a method of strengthening
the ties between the small business community
and the investment community.
Venture Capital Sources for the SBIR Entrepreneur
- This list was compiled by the Missile Defense
Agency (MDA), formerly the Ballistic Defense
Missile Organization (BMDO). It has a listing
of venture capital organizations that
they have identified as being interested in
SBIR technology.
Procurement
Information
Federal Business Opportunities
FedBizOpps.gov
is the single government point-of-entry (GPE)
for Federal government procurement opportunities
over $25,000. Government buyers are able to
publicize their business opportunities by posting
information directly to FedBizOpps via the Internet.
Through one portal - FedBizOpps (FBO) - commercial
vendors seeking Federal markets for their products
and services can search, monitor and retrieve
opportunities solicited by the entire Federal
contracting community.
Grant Opportunities
Grant opportunities
from all federal agencies in addition to SBIR
and STTR are accessible through this site under
Federal Commons, an
Internet grants management portal serving the
grantee organization community.
Federal
Awards
Each Federal
fiscal year begins on October 1 of one calendar
year and ends on September 30 of the year indicated.
The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR)
If you want
to do business with the federal government,
especially the Department of Defense, you need
to be aware of the Federal Acquisition Regulation
requirements. The FAR was established
to codify uniform policies for acquisition of
supplies and services by executive agencies.
It is issued and maintained jointly, under the
statutory authorities granted to the Secretary
of Defense, Administrator of General Services
and the Administrator, National Aeronautics
and Space Administration.
Access to
the Federal
Acquisition Regulations is also available
through this link.
DFAR
-
Refer to the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulations
Supplement if you are interested in doing business
with the Department of Defense
Revised 11/8/04
MSS
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