Very good question about COMET - Silicon Beach Australia

Message from discussion Very good question about COMET
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Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 13:43:23 -0700 (PDT)
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Subject: Re: Very good question about COMET
From: Richard Hayes <rgh....@gmail.com>
To: Silicon Beach Australia <silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com>
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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=A0pm, Warren Seen <warren.s...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Deniss
>
> As alluded to previously the main beneficiaries of comet funding seems =
=A0
> to be the advisors, ip lawyers and other consultants that enterprises =A0
> are permitted to engage under the comet program. It's certainly not =A0
> bootstrap funding, you really need to have already done the hard yards =
=A0
> 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 =A0
> employee of a startup which received comet funding. Others may of =A0
> course have an alternative view...
>
> Cheers,
>
> Warren
>
> On 01/07/2009, at 9:08 PM, Dennis <deniss.su...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > 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...
>