Most SBIR teams think they know who their customer is. It's the agency that funded them.
Not quite. In our experience, the strongest commercialization plans start by pulling apart three people who often get lumped together. Getting this right makes the entire commercialization plan stronger.
Question 1: Who funds the work?
This one feels easy. It's the agency or program office that wrote the solicitation and will sign your award.
But here's the catch. The office that funds research often does not buy finished products. A research office might pay for your Phase II and then have no budget, no authority, and no plan to purchase what you build.
If your plan treats the funder as your buyer, reviewers will notice. Good commercialization plans push beyond this point.
Question 2: Who buys the product?
This is the person or organization that actually writes a check for the finished thing. Understanding how their process works is important to a successful Phase II proposal. For example, in defense work, that is often not the government directly. It's a prime contractor.
Primes are the large firms that build and integrate major systems. If your technology is a component, a process, or a piece of software inside a bigger system, the prime is usually your real buyer. Government money flows through them to you.
So plan your route to a prime before you plan your route to the end user. Which primes work on the program you're targeting? Who at those firms evaluates new suppliers? What would they need to see from you?
Question 3: Who will use it?
The end user is the person who touches your product day to day. That might be an engineer, a technician, a program office, or a soldier in the field.
The end user cares about whether it works and whether it fits how they already do their jobs. Their needs shape your product. The buyer's needs shape your sales path. Your plan needs both.
Your product may have more than one end user. That makes your proposal stronger.
Why this matters to reviewers
Reviewers read a lot of plans that say "the Air Force will buy our product." That sentence tells them you haven't done the homework.
A plan that says "this office funds the research, these two primes integrate this class of component, and this program is the end user" tells a different story. It shows you understand how money and products actually move.
It also opens doors. Once you've mapped the buyers, you often find more than one. Other federal agencies may have the same need. Commercial markets may too. One customer on paper can become several in practice. Showing the agencies that your product can meet the needs of multiple industries helps them understand the potential value of your innovation.
Ask early and often
We ask these three questions in our very first intake call, before we write a word. The answers change the outline, the research, and the letters of support we go after.
If you can't answer all three yet, that's fine. It just tells you where to start digging. Your answers may also shift as you write the proposal. That's okay. It's why starting early matters: it gives you time to smooth out the rough edges.