$2m, denied
We heard back from the State of Indiana’s 21st Century Fund about our $2 million grant application and they declined to fund our proposal. The reasoning, as far as I could tell, was lack of detail in our technology plan, a confusing budget structure, and an industry with “intense competition.” Although 2 out of 3 reviewers showed approval for our request, one did not and I believe how their process works is that any one reviewer can veto the whole thing. We can re-submit our application in 6 months, but I haven’t determined if we will do or not.
This is, of course, disappointing. I would have loved to spend that money in the way our 75 page proposal laid out. However, if nothing else, the biggest lesson RedPost has taught me over the past two and a half years is to never count on anything until the money is in the bank. We haven’t been sitting around waiting for our $2m check to arrive.
The economy, or possibly just the spring weather, seems to be stirring the “potential customer pot” — we’ve gotten more sales calls in the past three weeks than in the past three months combined. And we’ve released a major upgrade to our whole app, 6 months in the making, improving how everything works together and preparing us for future software features. So no, we’re not sitting around counting daisies.
Was it worth the hours and hours we spent writing our proposal? Convincing 2 out of 3 reviewers our technology is a good investment means we were pretty close (but not 3/3). The process we went through did clarify for me the exact direction RedPost needs to take. And we fleshed it out — with lots of research, discussion, argument and general all-around contention. A good process to go through. So yes, I believe it was worth it. I mean, I tend to not feel a lot of regret in my life…do, learn, continue doing, that’s my philosophy.
