Unscripted……Highlights / Quick Pulses, Clips & Tachyons from the conversation…….
Strategic Funding via SBIR
……………And what is that through? Is that through the SBIR? What organization? Yeah, part of the National Institutes of Health, which has over 20 institutes, the National Institute on Aging is one of those 20 some odd institutes. So they happen to have this SBIR program. It stands for Small Business Innovative Research. There's many other types of research that go on within each of those different divisions of the NIA. But for the audience here, for small businesses, the SBIR program and the STTR program, which has a university partner as part of that, that's the track that we elected to go through. What university is it attached to? So ours is SBIR only. There are other organizations that would align to a university that would be that clinical research partner that likely would have the principal investigator, which is the main person that's responsible for carrying out the research that's proposed. So a lot of your top academic universities will have a research component arm as well. And then small businesses can kind of bolt onto that rigor, bolt onto that prestige and the access to human subjects, and then basically build and test and deploy their innovation alongside the university…….
Comparing Non-Dilutive Funding and VC Funding
……Do you feel that there's a lot of these requirements have helped you with your company? Is there a lot of strong overlap with the same pitch room for the data room for the VCs? I mean, how much, 70% overlap, kind of the same rigor? What is your thoughts on that? Yeah, so there is some overlap, but there are very different motivations for non-dilutive funding. Non-dilutive funding is really all about building innovations that will support an unmet need that that institute has been funded by our taxpayer dollars to solve. they're not looking specifically for, you know, what is your churn rate right now? What is, you know, what is your annual recurring revenue or how much cash runway do you have left? That's important, but from a small business innovative research perspective, they're looking for is this an innovative, scientifically-based intervention that incorporates a lot of the rigor that's expected amongst clinical research, that has the protection of human subjects, that has a budget that's fair and reasonable based on what the aims have, and that you can submit this on time and complete. So doesn't necessarily mean can this company scale to a billion dollar company and positioning your pitch deck so that you can become a unicorn. They're not looking for that………….
Grant and Prize Opportunities for Startups
……….Yeah, there's a lot, and I won't be able to do justice to name all of them. One of them, the National Institute on Aging does have this Eureka Prize or this eye care challenge every once in a while. That was actually the first award that we received. It was a dementia kind of care coordination challenge. that is different than a grant because it's basically prize money that you receive as opposed to needing to carry out clinical research. So look for some of these federal organizations that may have these. But there are other ones, like a great one is the AARP. They have this H tech collaborative. They have various pitch competitions throughout the year. That's a phenomenal one to really hone in on your pitch and build out. I think it's like a three minute pitch and then you'll have to do subsequent ones as you advance…….
Improving Health Span Through Lifestyle Changes
…………And I appreciate you opening up about your personal family experience, because it's something that so many of us are now have engaging parents and having to face the reality that we're living longer. can't necessarily change our lifespan, but we can impact our health span. So there's a great book by Peter Attia that really talks about the difference between the two. And I'm 45 years old. I'm sure many people are approaching that mid age. So really focus on lifestyle interventions, focus on your diet, your nutrition. having different social engagement and connections in the community, getting out in nature, don't smoke. And if you do smoke or drink, just do it in moderation and focus on getting sleep. uh so at least from you know a public service announcement i think there's been a bunch of recent research on the finger study and there's another one where anywhere up to about 50 of the cases of dementia can be prevented or at least pushed out much further into the disease if you do some of these lifestyle interventions so Those are some of the things we talk about with MAP Habits, and we coach caregivers on things that they can do for self-care. But just for anyone that's watching, there's no magic drug for these things, but you can change your trajectory if you start early enough……..
Strategic Advice for Grant Applications
……….You also can raise some friends and family money, angel money, or even VC money and utilize that to hire a grant writer or a grant editor or a grant administrator to help you along the process. That'll be different than this free, you know, structured 12-week program that different SBIR organizations have, but it'll offer you a way that you can probably apply to a grant which you may not have that technical writing skill set or those examples in place, then you can utilize a professional grant writer to get you over the hump. So there's a number of really good organizations that are out there that you can leverage…………
Key Components of a Structured Research Strategy
…….there are what are called specific aims that you would have and you know people can have anywhere from two to four aims we typically choose that lucky number three uh and and basically they should be interconnected uh so for in the example of our caregiver training program you know we might have an aim that looks to survey the caregiver on what their needs are as the first aim aim two may be based on that survey develop content that is unique to the disease the progression age ethnicity gender and then the third aim might be let's actually do a clinical research project whether it be a feasibility or randomized control trial and and kind of break people out into different groups and study them over uh you know, three to six month period and do some of this neuropsychological tests, look at some of the platform analytics and then ultimately report out the outcomes of that. So that whole document that I just described is the research strategy. That's the most important documents of this. There are other pieces, especially as you move from that feasibility in that phase one into the larger phase two, where you really have to have a commercialization plan, where you talk about, you know, how are you going to market it? You know, what kind of revenue do you expect to achieve? Who are your competitors? What's the reimbursement and regulatory strategy and how are you going to build a customer base? support organization as the company grows………..
A Personal Connection to Dementia Care
…….Yeah, I personally can say that I really this touches home. My father's 91. My mom's 85. She'll be 86 this year. My dad was, um, diagnosed with dementia. He's in hospice and gosh, the caregiver support is so needed. So many solutions that are needed. It's just an ever ending battle. Um, thank goodness we have some good support. Hospice has been an amazing experience, but love what you're doing. And, um, Really, your product, you've really continued to drive deep on that caregiver, that journey, and really supporting.
The Significance of Research Strategy in Alzheimer's Disease
……The core of the research program is the research strategy. The research strategy is typically a 12-page document that is broken down into three main areas. The first one is, what is the significance of your innovation? You know, why is it important? You know, map habits. There's, you know, 6.7 million people with Alzheimer's disease and close to 14 or 15 million caregivers that are supporting them. You know, it costs over $350 billion a year to just to support someone with Alzheimer's disease and even more money that is unpaid to family caregivers. And they're really the lifeblood of the society. But unfortunately, the disease is very specific and there's no one size fits all, and it becomes a huge burden on the family caregiver to support people with dementia. So having a scalable technology that does have some degree of that personalization that can be incorporated into the onboarding process and also through some of the wraparound clinical services like some of the coaching we have in care and navigation that when you combine that with the fact that we're tapping a spared region of the brain that previously has not been addressed by other pharmacology, pharmacological drugs or even other lifestyle interventions, that then becomes very innovative…………
Matt Golden on MapHabit's Mission
……….Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, thanks for having me on, Michael. This is something I've been looking forward to for a while. Again, my name is Matt Golden, co-founder, CEO of MapHabit. MapHabit is a behavioral health platform that supports people who are neurodiverse and their caregivers, so people with Alzheimer's disease, related dementia, traumatic brain injuries, and different types of developmental disabilities, really build habits and routines, remain independent in their homes as long as they desire, and also really improve the quality of life for the entire circle of support, which often includes unpaid family caregivers who are really going through a really tough time in terms of supporting their loved ones…….
Value of Clinical Research in Differentiation
……..If you have clinical research publications, which take about a year to carry out the research to even write the paper and be accepted, it's actually a lot longer than a year traditionally. For MapHabit, that's our biggest IP. The fact that we have five peer-reviewed publications and we basically have about one additional one that we are able to produce each year, that really does set you apart that no other competitor can replicate unless they go through that process. So it is very appealing, I would think, especially if the VC has been an operator or has received some of these funds before. If I were to ever go on that side of the world, I would look for that in digital health startups that I would find………..
Strategic Advice for Grant Applications
………You also can raise some friends and family money, angel money, or even VC money and utilize that to hire a grant writer or a grant editor or a grant administrator to help you along the process. That'll be different than this free, you know, structured 12-week program that different SBIR organizations have, but it'll offer you a way that you can probably apply to a grant which you may not have that technical writing skill set or those examples in place, then you can utilize a professional grant writer to get you over the hump. So there's a number of really good organizations that are out there that you can leverage……….
Resources, & References for Non-Dilutive Funding
See this link for the newly rebranded: NIA SBIR/STTR New Application Program (SNAP). It's a fantastic way for founders to get coaching & feedback from the grant funders on exactly what they're looking for in applications.
The top grant writing firm we've used is Eva Garland Consulting. They have 40+ grant writers/administrators to help with the writing and technical submission of grants. Great way to supplement these skillsets from founders without that expertise.
https://www.nia.nih.gov/research/sbir/about-nia-small-business-funding
https://www.nia.nih.gov/research/sbir
https://www.nia.nih.gov/research/grants-funding
https://www.a2collective.ai/pilotawards
https://agetechcollaborative.org/
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121 Non-dilutive fundraising options for founders in AgeTech with Matt Golden Co-founder & CEO Maphabit