April 2016 Experience sharing I Riivo Anton I riivo.anton@civitta.ee

Applying to H2020 SME Instrument - Evaluator

experience

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How are the proposals evaluated?

Evaluator compensation: Phase 1 project: 1h20m/project Phase 2 project: 2h/project The evaluator needs to address around 25 criteria by:

• Grading each of the criteria by points 0-100 • Provide short explanation (300 characters) on each criterion • The application form and the evaluation form are not following the

same structure

Each proposal is evaluated by 4 experts It is claimed that these are people from specific verticals (tech experts) and general business experts. The evalators are not informed if they are evaluating as tech or business experts. Black box: The evalautors do not know each other, cannot communicate with each other nor see each others evaluations.

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Things to be addressed in the application form

Problem - Why do you think your idea is important? Solution – How do you solve the problem? Product – What does your product do? Market + go-to-market strategy – Market size? Which channels will you use to reach your customers? Business model – How do you make money? Competition – Who else is there? How are you different? Financials – How big the business can be and how does it grow? Team – Who is taking care of management, sales, tech?

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Typical problems, possible solutions (1)

Using technical language. A lot of text. Falling in love with the technology (focusing on the product). Solution looking for a problem.

Forgetting about the business.

Use simple language. Your grandmother and retriever should understand it. Prefer links to videos (hardware projects) and figures to plain text.

Prefer market overview to product overview. Know your market segment (size, CAGR, competitors etc). Demonstrate market demand (provide sample case study, LoI etc)

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Typical problems, possible solutions (2)

Missing or very general overview of the go to market strategy. Going local or regional.

Missing critical competences in team.

Give decent idea about the go to market strategy (channels, how are your channels validated , CAC etc).

Go European, better global. At least general management, SALES and tech should be covered

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Typical problems, possible solutions (3)

Providing vision or ideas. Soft arguments. Complicated business concepts and value propositions.

Evaluators look for facts and numbers. Be concrete. Show how your product is better. Ideas simple to understand seem to be more successful.

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