Hello,

Is COMET the program that supposed to help you to kick start your
startup? If that's the case then how would you apply if it doesn't
support
"research and development and production expenses", "in-house running
expenses (e.g. accounting fees, office expenses)", "international
travel incurred by the customer."? It's a bit confusing...

Deniss

Hi Deniss

As alluded to previously the main beneficiaries of comet funding seems  
to be the advisors, ip lawyers and other consultants that enterprises  
are permitted to engage under the comet program. It's certainly not  
bootstrap funding, you really need to have already done the hard yards  
and be at the point of taking your fully developed product to market.

Call me cynical, but that's been my first hand experience as an  
employee of a startup which received comet funding. Others may of  
course have an alternative view...

Cheers,

Warren

On 01/07/2009, at 9:08 PM, Dennis <deniss.su...@gmail.com> wrote:

Comet is *NOT* for boot strapping.

Many of the grants especially the NSW grants specifically exclude
companies younger than 12 months.  I own a light company that is doing
well and is already exporting.  We did not qualify for any NSW Export
grants as we are only 10 months old.

Government grants are expensive.
I just applied for a Climate Ready Grant of $500K. Our consultant
change $12K (about half his normal fee) plus it has taken over 200
hours to complete a 7 page application.

The partners have lost at least $20,000 in opportunity costs and I
think we only have 20% chance of getting the grant.

Using money earned from clients is generally cheaper and easier than
applying for a grant.

On Jul 1, 9:31 pm, Warren Seen <warren.s...@gmail.com> wrote:

Dennis,
COMET doesn't cover what the government would consider operational
costs ('inhouse running expenses') or marketing costs ('international
travel').
There are grants that assist with international marketing (EMDG
grants) which reimburse you a % of your costs in arrears.

COMET covers market research, development of a prototype and proof of
concept (which was useful in my case because my technical resources
are a contracted third party) and IP protection.
And management skills training etc.
You get to negotiate which ones you go for, and the split between
them, with your COMET advisor who gets 1% of any funds you raise
(capped at $100K) for 2 years, I think.
The best way to get assistance with operational costs is through the
R&D Tax Concession.
You can claim it if you're doing R&D, and if you have $20K or more of
costs in a year.
You don't have to be paying tax/profitable to claim a % of your "R&D
spend".
It's about 33%, I think.
You can claim salary, rent, equipment, interest costs, IP such as
patents you purchase in order to further develop / commercialise etc.
And there's a different program and different rebate level for tax-
paying companies.

John Haining of MJA & Associates may be able to help, but I think they
operate mainly with grants & tax concessions for larger R&D projects
at the big end of town.
But John's very approachable and will soon tell you.

Cheers,

Andrew.

On Jul 1, 9:08 pm, Dennis <deniss.su...@gmail.com> wrote: