My company (Freytag & Company, LLC), won a DARPA Phase I and Phase II STTR (just like a SBIR but 30% goes to a US univesity). Phase I was for <$100K/1 year (at

My company (Freytag & Company, LLC), won a DARPA Phase I and Phase II STTR (just like a SBIR but 30% goes to a US univesity). Phase I was for <$100K/1 year (at least 30% to a U.S. university so its $70K which has to in fact last you 18-24 months IF you win Phase II - YC-like if you ask me) and Phase II was competed with second-contract award a year after Phase I ended for < $750K/2 years (again 30% to university). Topic DARPA ST061-004: ttp://tinyurl.com/yzuqxwh This was our fourth SBIR/STTR proposal and only win. SBIR/STTR topics are very competitive (winning teaches you how so you are more likely to win again). This particular topic received ~30 submissions of which an unusually high number were awarded (3) Phase I money. Winning Phase I does not mean you win Phase II because of poor results or no Federal funds available. For this topic we also had two competitors for Phase II funding. You cannot win Phase II without first winning the Phase I. The marketing, regulatory, and compliance process that comes with this money has been VC-pitching-intense but the advantages and cautions are very, very different. One advantage is that the Federal government pays in a recession. The catches are important and I found surprising (e.g it is non-trivial to negotiate a contract with a U.S. university under a deadline and to do so while complying with the Bayh-Dole Act). Also DoD SBIR/STTRs train you to become a government contractor (NSF might be different). Selling commercially is unusual but laudable - just don't expect people to be very familiar with what you need in the way a VC is "supposed" to be. As a result of this process, my company (Freytag & Company, LLC), has products, enough money for one other employee, and huge experience going to the government market. Since, our Phase II contract was "cost plus fixed fee" (most bigger government contracts are), and most costs are labor hours, regulatory compliance means tracking labor hours with contract codes. We passed our first Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) audit just before we won our Phase II and are about to undergo another audit less than two years later. As a result we have probably one of the tightest accounting systems for a company this size you will ever see (and a damn fine accountant). Because we took a lot of money and are doing something that might fail despite the money, we (well, -I-) decided to give our time-tracking tool away free. Figured it was a certain way to: 1. help the SBIR/STTR program grow our economy by 2. helping other firms immediately solve one part of their compliance problem - that of being able to track employee and contractor hours in the particular way the government expects. If you need to track your labor hours over a distributed team of developers and would like to use a tool that has taken at least one firm through a government audit (and soon another - joy!) email me at timesheets@freytag.us. Please tell me who you are and what your problem is when you write.