SBIR Proposal Writing Basics: You Will Always Have Competition
Gail & Jim Greenwood, Greenwood Consulting Group, Inc. Copyright © 2007 by Greenwood Consulting Group, Inc. When assessing the commercial potential of an SBIR/STTR project, it is critically important to consider your competition. It seems like a simple concept, but in reality it is a bit more complicated.
First, you must realize that technical superiority may not be enough to beat your competition. Ask anyone who has developed a superior software product to what Microsoft offers-they were superior, but guess who has won in the market place? Most buying decisions will rest on more than just technical superiority-ease of use, cost, reputation, existing buyer relationships, bias, fear, and perceived threats to one's wisdom, are all relevant to the buying decision.
Second, one of your competitors is the status quo, even if it is inaction. Why is this a competitor? Because humans feel most comfortable when they are doing what they are most familiar with. They know how much it costs, how to tweak it, what it can and cannot do. Your “superior solution” may be seen as a threat to this comfortable situation, so you may not be welcomed with open arms by potential customers. Third, you need to know who provides competing technical solutions to yours. This can include fellow SBIR/STTR winners (maybe someone who won on the same topic on which you also won), large industry, foreign firms, and others. With a humble and contrite heart, consider what they have to offer versus your product or service, and try to determine why their offering might appeal to the customer. By the way, if your competitor is already selling products/services to the market and you are not, they have a distinct and significant advantage regardless of your possible superiority, because customers have already invested time, money, and reputation on their product/service, which makes them less likely to switch over to yours. Fourth, you need to consider indirect competitors. These folks are sometimes harder to identify than direct competitors. As an example, at the turn of the 20th century, the railroads were busy competing with each other for freight and passengers—they failed to recognize the indirect competition from the automobile and trucks, and eventually the airlines. They needed to be asking themselves “what do our customers buy from us?” The naïve answer was rail service; the correct answer was transport of goods and people from point A to point B. If they had taken this broader view, they might have seen the indirect auto, truck and plane competition that was emerging. YOU need to avoid making the same mistake, by making sure you are clearly defining what your customers are buying, which may be different than you naively assume it is. Finally, understand who makes the buying decision in your customer’s organization. You might have a product that thrills the technical staff, but if the buying decision is made by a bean counter who is worried about profitability, you may not have a buying customer. There may be a difference between the user of your product/service, and the buyer who holds the purse strings.
In the wise words of Roland Tibbetts, the granddaddy of SBIR, “Think as long, hard, deep and creatively about commercial applications as you do about the R&D effort.” If you fail to put that kind of thought into identifying and analyzing your competitors, one of them likely will eat your lunch in the marketplace.
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