Having gone through some of this, the timelines, requirements, selection process, etc. make the SBIR largely non-viable for a serious outsider tech startup effo

Having gone through some of this, the timelines, requirements, selection process, etc. make the SBIR largely non-viable for a serious outsider tech startup effort and without outside primary funding. It's great, for example, for professors not fully committing to a venture, but wanting to run it on the side over a prolonged time. Likewise, for a contractor shop cranking these out every year, or a stable non-startup wanting to get an R&D engineer covered. If you are indeed coming from inside the system, it can be a great supplement! But for most startup folks here, your effort would go out of business before the successive funding rounds materialized, and there is too much risk that they don't happen to rely on them. You can read between the lines on the success stories reported even here. Your limited time is better spent on non-SBIR investors & customers.