How the non-profit, foundation model may be your solution to the challenge of broadening the impact of your research

In recent months, I’ve noticed a trend: colleagues approaching me with an eerily similar question that taps into a larger issue facing academics and innovators alike:

“So, I built this. It’s gotten really excellent early feedback. I want to bring it to more people, what should I do?”

Now, believe me, I’m both an academic and a startup founder-operator, I have some pretty interesting colleagues. So when one begins with “So I built this,” I give them my attention. What they’ve built is almost certainly state-of-the-art in some capacity. And they’ve each observed its value when used in their early user testing.

In each case, of course, my colleagues shared details about what they had built and their ideas on what they could do next. But, those details don’t matter greatly, and I want to respect the privacy of the individuals who came to me. I do believe in all of these encounters there was genuine interest in broadening the impact of what they built.

Below, I’ll break down these conversations into key questions and responses, offering insights on whether to start a company, apply for a grant, or consider a non-profit foundation for broadening the impact of such an innovation.

Interestingly, in these discussions, it turned out that my colleagues really did not have much interest in building a startup company. They sincerely wanted to see their work adopted. But, they ultimately were less committed to the daunting prospect of building a startup, a roller coaster ride of challenges that is neither for the lighthearted, nor in alignment with the classical performance indicators of academics. This led us to focus on the idea of creating a non-profit or foundation to support broader adoption.

Should I start a company for this?

Essentially, no matter how steeped in the academic world these folks are, they understand that startups and university spinouts are a natural option for academics to bring the fruits of their labor to a broader user base. However, actually operating a company means work that likely none of these folks or their team members were trained for or had a particular interest in doing. This is intellectually stimulating work like building a go-to-market strategy and evaluating product-market fit, and it is operations labor like managing a payroll provider, etc. And this is not even getting close to the work required for getting funding from seed or venture investors, which itself takes significant effort.

After talking about this with each of my inquiring colleagues, it became increasingly clear that although they had passion for their innovation, they did not necessarily have passion for building a company to bring it to market. In each case, we tended to leave this part of the discussion at some form of: “if you are really going to consider starting a company for this, then you need to ensure that you are fully committed to its success.” Starting a company is no small task.

Oddly, we talked about finding other people to actually start the company for them, which is a classical way of approaching this problem for academics. Yet, none seemed willing to hand over the control, which would ultimately be necessary.

Should I apply for an SBIR?

Inevitably, being academics, we also talked about applying for a grant to fund the work of broadening adoption. Most federal funding agencies in the US have a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant program that aims to stimulate technological innovation by funding small businesses to help commercialize their innovations, thereby fostering economic growth and addressing specific governmental needs. While the program’s aim of stimulating innovation is important, it’s not obvious to me that it’s a match for this case.

First, you began the conversation telling me you’ve already built something worthwhile. As far as I know, the SBIR program is for yet-to-be-built extensions of your innovation that you may or may not have much interest in.

Second, I’ve seen numerous cases over the years where someone starts a company funded by an SBIR with the intention of building a business. However, the lifecycle of one SBIR turns out to be insufficient to actually bootstrap the business. So, the founders then need to secure further funding. They could try to go to seed or venture funding. But, this would be a challenge. Although the SBIR grant mentions an emphasis on a business plan, it seems rare that actual customer outreach and product-market fit are established during the work of a typical SBIR.

These academic founders would need to emphasize the other half of the startup — building the actual business — which is a muscle not frequently developed during the grant period.

This makes it difficult to convince investors, especially given the time already invested in the company. Instead, the much easier thing to do is apply for another SBIR, laying the groundwork for what are commonly called “SBIR shops,” i.e., small businesses whose primary go-to-market approach is funding through SBIR programs, rarely turning anything into an actual commercial product.

Third, the principle of the SBIR grant is to, in good faith, actually attempt to start a business based on the technology you develop in the grant. It is not free money; in fact, it is tax-payer money marked for stimulating technological innovation in new small businesses. Is this something you really want to do? As I said above, it is not a decision to be taken lightly.

Have you considered a non-profit or a foundation?

While my colleagues and I explored various options for their business endeavors, such as licensing their innovation to another company, our conversations consistently gravitated towards a different model that seemed to better fit the needs and goals of academic innovators. Since these individuals did not want to focus on the work of building a startup company, the route to a non-profit or foundation seemed more appropriate. This route would enable them to maintain a mission-driven focus emphasizing the adoption and impact of their innovation irrespective of the commercial viability.

The Embodied AI Foundation is probably the first place I learned about this different style of broadening adoption of technical work. It supports the highly popular open source CARLA autonomous driving simulator, for example. This model is, however, becoming more popular. I find it popping up in numerous ways to support various innovations. For example, the Common Visual Data Foundation was created to provide long-term support for the wildly popular Common Objects in Context (COCO) dataset in computer vision.

While this may be an attractive model that lets the academic achieve their impact goals without the challenges inherent in creating a for-profit entity, it is not without its own risks. The two biggest being funding and operations. How will you fund the effort? This may indeed mean grant programs like those above, but it also unlocks different types of money that emphasize such non-profits as long as your mission is in alignment with those of the money source. Operationally, at least once the effort grows, you likely still need to find someone to help you run the entity. Yet, these challenges seem to me to be a heck of a lot easier than the challenges of starting a for-profit entity.

Closing

In conclusion, while the allure of a grant- or venture-backed startup company might initially seem like the most direct route to broadening the impact of what you’ve built, it’s essential to consider alternative models that align better with your goals and resources. The non-profit or foundation route offers a mission-driven approach that prioritizes adoption and societal impact over commercial gain, mitigating many of the operational burdens and risks associated with for-profit ventures. As we’ve discussed, it’s not without its challenges, particularly in funding and management, but it offers a viable path for academics passionate about their creations yet hesitant to embark on the startup rollercoaster. By focusing on your mission and leveraging the support of grants and philanthropic funding, you can achieve a broader and more sustainable impact with your innovation.

Acknowledgments

Thank you to my colleague Michelle Brinich for reviewing and editing this blog.

Biography

Jason Corso is Professor of Robotics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan and Co-Founder / Chief Science Officer of the AI startup Voxel51. He received his PhD and MSE degrees at Johns Hopkins University in 2005 and 2002, respectively, and a BS Degree with honors from Loyola University Maryland in 2000, all in Computer Science. He is the recipient of the University of Michigan EECS Outstanding Achievement Award 2018, Google Faculty Research Award 2015, Army Research Office Young Investigator Award 2010, National Science Foundation CAREER award 2009, SUNY Buffalo Young Investigator Award 2011, a member of the 2009 DARPA Computer Science Study Group, and a recipient of the Link Foundation Fellowship in Advanced Simulation and Training 2003. Corso has authored more than 150 peer-reviewed papers and hundreds of thousands of lines of open-source code on topics of his interest including computer vision, robotics, data science, and general computing. He is a member of the AAAI, ACM, MAA and a senior member of the IEEE.

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