I've worked on half a dozen, and written as many proposals. You need to write a 20 page proposal, and you get a stage 1 round. It's usually smallish like $100K.

I've worked on half a dozen, and written as many proposals. You need to write a 20 page proposal, and you get a stage 1 round. It's usually smallish like $100K. You ask what the sponsor wants you to build, build it with $20K, use the rest on real work, and then get a $700K check to do a bigger project. You should be able to get a product to market with that money. The problem is that the government doesn't expect you to do that. You meet expectations and just finish the work while writing other proposals. It isn't conducive to a growth startup. For example, iRobot was a boutique research firm for almost a decade before they finally decided to make a product. I used to work for CRA in cambridge. That's still their schtick.