# The money from SBIR is barely worth the money The easy first order claim is that [[SBIR]] grants support companies that are doing the work that corporate R&D labs formerly undertook. However, the overhead and the amount of money create severe limitations that prevent them from living up to that promise. [[Professors are constantly doing the calculation of whether a grant is worth the time to apply for it]] and small business owners are in the same boat. [Are SBIR funds just too difficult to win for their worth? | Acquisition Talk](https://acquisitiontalk.com/2020/09/are-sbir-funds-just-too-difficult-to-win-for-their-worth/) “*To clarify the math, if it takes two man-months (~320 hours) to prepare a SBIR proposal, and you have a 20 percent chance of getting the award, that’s an average of 10 man-months per award.*” https://twitter.com/EdgeworthBoxInc/status/1304827400467943425 *Let’s assume Orin’s estimate is true, and let’s value an hour of time at $100. That means the average SBIR award costs $160,000 to win. Likely benefits: $50,000 for a Phase I and $750,000 to $1.5M for Phase II.* https://twitter.com/AcqTalk/status/1304861131601739777?s=20 [[Jonathan Blow]] concurs: https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Blow/status/1304863394269286400?s=20 On top of the overhead SBIRs, still suffer from the fact that [[The government grant process depends on politics and committees]] ### Related * [[aroraChangingStructureAmerican2020]] * [[People giving out grants try to derisk them as much as possible]] * [[Giving Away Money Costs More Than You Think]]