If you are a small business and qualify to participate in the SBIR program, it is a natural enhancer to your existing business. If you are small enough you may be able to start a company using SBIR funding, but you will soon come to realize that if your sources of income are not diversified (with SBIR being only one source) you might fall victim to funding cycles and no income. Although the Government provides funding to spawn technology its dual mission is to help that technology grow into viable commercial technology. If you can not bring your SBIR funding to fruition via commercialization, then you may find yourself receiving less and less funding as the years unfold.

Also, there are fluctuations with regard to prioritization among technological programs in the Government. One year you might receive an SBIR Phase I to do a feasibility study on XYZ and you might even be lucky enough to land a Phase II where the funding is three quarters of a million dollars to put a prototype together based on your Phase I findings. The customer might be so pleased with your work on the Phase II that you are told they are going to budget X millions of dollars to order X # of these gizmos. And then you play the waiting game. You wait, and wait, and wait