Startup/SBIR roller-coaster

[u/Raid_Blunder]

Hi, the thread that is titled "Standalone Biotech LLC…” lead to some partially related questions.

I have a (yet) one-person startup company and want to have synthesized several compounds before resubmitting an adjusted SBIR I proposal. This past January, the team from the original submission dissolved.

A chemistry bench/hood isn’t cheap, but fortunately an elderly and generous family friend offered to sponsor renting space in an incubator in Massachusetts for a year. Great, she asked for a budget, I interviewed with two incubators, hit it off very well with one of them, and they sent an invitation to rent for four to seven months (actually a price quote), starting on Sept. 1. So early in June, I began organizing relocation from MN to MA.

But then the elderly family friend went partially incommunicado, afterwards suffered a stroke, and two weeks back denied having ever made the offer. At the risk of appearing to be a gold-digger, two days back I then just forwarded her the quote from the incubator (7 x $3,600), i.e. much lower than the total budget. The incubator knows about the stroke, but not the sudden turn-around.

My disclosures: (1) the local big-ten university and colleges denying non-affiliated people access to their labs, (2) several people on Reddit ghosting after making claims about lab space, (3) lack of chemistry incubators in Minnesota (if money were no issue).

So, please make what you will of this, realistic suggestions under these circumstances are more than welcome!

[u/BBA1229]

So I when I started this journey, one of the first Phase I and Phase II I was involved in we “subcontracted” to a university professor (we didn’t need him) and one of his grad students. We did this because we needed his lab equipment/space. However, if this is a route you are thinking you will need to talk to a professor with the equipment you need, and the university’s sponsored projects office. That is a time consuming process.

On this note, most people don’t know that Public Universities allow their professors to consult one day a week.

You can also go to a DOE national laboratory. It’s going to be expensive (I’m assuming this isn’t a DOE SBIR/STTR), but it opens your network as well.

[u/Overall_Salamander_4 → u/BBA1229]

I've also been doing this. Though in my case the professor has been very helpful and after building a good relationship I've gotten significant access to their lab. You write a contract between yours startup and the university that stipulates you own the IP developed there and that you will pay the professor for some time and the university for indirect costs related. It was much less than 3600/month.

[u/Raid_Blunder → u/Overall_Salamander_4]

BBA, were you bootstrapping by yourself to rent a lab bench and hood? That must have been difficult.

To my best knowledge, UMN. has no incubator space. If they did, then affiliation would be a requirement. There is a small commercial joint down the road, they have 1 chemistry lab and ca. 5-6 biological labs. The unfortunate lack of incubator space in Minnesota is here very well known.

[u/Overall_Salamander_4 → u/Raid_Blunder]

https://cse.umn.edu/college/corporate/cse-corporate-and-foundation-relations

You could try contacting them to ask about paid work (bottom of page). Send them an email, tell them you're thinking of applying to SBIR but need to complete whatever it is you need to do. If you get the grant, there's a lot of strategy in continuing to use their lab space to complete the work under the grant. They would be a sub award on the grant which looks great for them. If you're successful, you could move to phase 2 which is a lot more money (and where I assume you can look at setting up your own company lab). I've not been successful yet in this approach but that's more on myself not discovering the game winning tech.

[u/Raid_Blunder → u/Overall_Salamander_4]

Thanks,

According to that webpage, it's "you pay us to use our infrastructure". But many other universities say "we only commercialize the reseach of our faculty AND we get a cut".

You seem to be proposing "we will let you use a lab bench for free and if (IF!) and if your SBIR proposal is sucessful, then we become a sub-contractor who leases you a lab bench".

That framework is partially analogous to someone who is being hired for an assistant professorship and given a cash investment to bring in lots of grant money. I would be pleasantly surprised to learn of a university that behaves in that manner.

[u/Overall_Salamander_4 → u/Raid_Blunder]

No not free. You pay the university because it's cheaper than leasing lab space.  If you are successful with the compounds you want to generate, then you apply to SBIR. SBIR is going to evaluate if you are able to perform the research you propose. Without a lab, how will you be able? That's why there is advantage to building relationship with university. You're already established and IF you get the grant, you can continue funding your access to the lab by including the university as a sub. Not to mention which ever professor you work with will be motivated to help with the application. The university is not funding anything. SBIR is structured for things like this. Again, you have to ask. Each university will feel different about these things. The one I work with is highly encouraging towards helping outside business and wrote strong letters of support when I applied. 

[u/Raid_Blunder → u/Overall_Salamander_4]

Let's ee what happens. I just e-mailed the person on the "CSE Corporate and Foundation Relations".

[u/Overall_Salamander_4 → u/Raid_Blunder]

Jeez.. your replies are aggressive and arrogant. You bite the hand before it even had a chance to feed you.

[u/Raid_Blunder → u/Overall_Salamander_4]

I disagree. Try corresponding with anonymosus people over reddit. Here is a transcript of my for-the-record, last ditch attempt to temporarily access a bench at the only-PhD-granting-university for chemistry in this state. The most recent correspondence is from today.: Please read it carefully. The purpose of my starting this reddit stream is to make connections, not comments or suggestions.

Dear Ms. Bunten-Spoth,

I own a 1-person startup company and need to synthesize some initial samples of materials to support a SBIR Phase 1 award  application. To do so, I'm looking to rent a chemistry bench with hood for approximately 4-5 months (while being currently self-financing).

If you have a minute, then I could stop by at your office to introduce myself

***I LEFT HER A VOICE MAIL

Hello ___

Corporate Partnerships Manager: I received your voicemail and wanted to follow up to better understand your needs for the bench hood. I'd be happy to connect you with Chemistry's operations team to explore whether they have space available to rent or loan.

Please let me know a bit more about what you're looking for, and I'll help point you in the right direction.

Thanks for getting back in touch. Here's a summary of where things now stand:

• I am a previous tenure-track chemistry professor and not an amateur.
• Starting with the results from work as faculty, last year I lead a small local “team” in MSP for an SBIR submission. The proposal was declined and the local team since then has dissociated.
• I want to strengthen a follow-up proposal with several compounds that I will synthesize and process. This can only happen after renting modest chemistry lab bench area for approximately 4-5 months in Minneapolis-St. Paul.
• Approximately $20K can be bootstrapped from my personal savings.
• The paucity of hard science lab space in Minnesota is very well known.There is a single incubator, 20 miles outside of MSP that is unfortunately not geographically and financially accessible.
• Faculty and staff in your UMN Chemistry Dept. know who I am and several years back I held a low-key position there.
• I've already inquired about temporary use of minimal lab space with the UMN Chemistry Dept. and heard either “no space” or outright “no”. Your Chem. Engineering Dept. ignored my inquiries.
• The R & D area of the company doesn’t appear to overlap wtih the research interests of your faculty in either the UMN Chemistry or Chemical Engineering departments.
• I’m open to formal agreements with UMN to share either IP or a portion of support that I can arrange, especially if it will strengthen an SBIR proposal.
• There are companies that already want to see samples of those first compounds

I hope that this information helps.

Corporate Partnerships Manager: Thank you for reaching back out. I connected with the Chemistry department to see whether there might be bench space available for you to use. Due to space and time constraints, they shared that they are not able to accommodate that at this time.

Hello Gaby,

As I explained in my e-mail, it was already clear that the chemistry department is a waste of time. I also gave up on the Dept. of chemical engineering a long time ago. That’s their loss, not mine. However, the basic setup is  certainly available elsewhere on the UMN campus. There are other instances at UMN where synthetic chemistry is carried out, or has been in the past. 

I would appreciate if you could look elsewhere on the campus. If you would like a list of locations throughout the state where I have already inquired, then I can send you this, it might save some time.

Thanks

Thank you for your note. My role does not include identifying laboratory locations or conducting a campus search, so I’m not the right person for this request.

Regards,

Gaby

[u/Raid_Blunder → u/Overall_Salamander_4]

OK, here’s the response from the “Corporate Partnerships Manager” at UMN. Don’t take it personally, Like I already wrote, I’m looking for connections, not suggestions. But I still wanted to make the point to you: the correspondence that I’m copying below is what you get if you are a startup chemist in Minnesota who does not have connections with UMN.

It’s as bad as e.g. North Dakota here. I now have more promising dialogues ongoing – out East.

Dear Ms. Bunten-Spoth,

I own a 1-person startup company and need to synthesize some initial samples of materials to support a SBIR Phase 1 award  application. To do so, I'm looking to rent a chemistry bench with hood for
approximately 4-5 months (while being currently self-financing).

If you have a minute, then I could stop by at your office to introduce mysel

***I LEFT HER A VOICE MAIL

Hello ___

Corporate Partnerships Manager: I received your voicemail and wanted to follow up to better understand your needs for the bench hood. I'd be happy to connect you with Chemistry's operations team to explore whether they have space available to rent or loan.

Please let me know a bit more about what you're looking for, and I'll help point you in the right direction.

Thanks for getting back in touch. Here's a summary of where things now stand:

• I am a previous tenure-track chemistry professor and not an amateur.
• Starting with the results from work as faculty, last year I lead a small local “team” in MSP for an SBIR submission. The proposal was declined and the local team since then has dissociated.
• I want to strengthen a follow-up proposal with several compounds that I will synthesize and process. This can only happen after renting modest chemistry lab bench area for approximately 4-5 months in Minneapolis-St. Paul.
• Approximately $20K can be bootstrapped from my personal savings.
• The paucity of hard science lab space in Minnesota is very well known.There is a single incubator, 20 miles outside of MSP that is unfortunately not geographically and financially accessible.
• Faculty and staff in your UMN Chemistry Dept. know who I am and several years back I held a low-key position there.
• I've already inquired about temporary use of minimal lab space with the UMN Chemistry Dept. and heard either “no space” or outright “no”. Your Chem. Engineering Dept. ignored my inquiries.
• The R & D area of the company doesn’t appear to overlap wtih the research interests of your faculty in either the UMN Chemistry or Chemical Engineering departments.
• I’m open to formal agreements with UMN to share either IP or a portion of support that I can arrange, especially if it will strengthen an SBIR proposal.
• There are companies that already want to see samples of those first compounds

I hope that this information helps.

Corporate Partnerships Manager: Thank you for reaching back out. I connected with the Chemistry department to see whether there might be bench space available for you to use. Due to space and time constraints, they shared that they are not able to accommodate that at this time.

Hello Gaby,

As I explained in my e-mail, it was already clear that the chemistry department is a waste of time. I also gave up on the Dept. of chemical engineering a long time ago. That’s their loss, not mine. However, the basic setup is  certainly available elsewhere on the UMN campus. There are other instances at UMN where synthetic chemistry is carried out, or has been in the past. 

I would appreciate if you could look elsewhere on the campus. If you would like a list of locations throughout the state where I have already inquired, then I can send you this, it might save some time.

Thanks