Top Gun

Don Gooding was a telecommunications market analyst and venture capitalist for fifteen years, founded and ran a global specialty music business for sixteen years, and has invested as an angel since the late 1990s. His current start-up is a resource for business plan competitions; EnterPrize Institute will publish the first-ever research report on these important entrepreneurial support events, which have proliferated around the globe in the last decade, in September 2010. In addition, he is Manager of the state-wide USM Student Business Plan Competition, and a member of the Maine Angels.

As Research Partner for Accel Partners (1986-1996), he investigated new telecom and networking markets, finding and evaluating new investment opportunities. Don authored a monthly column in Communications Week, was co-chair of the annual Accel/Stanford Center for Telecommunications Symposium, and was the first webmaster in the venture capital industry. He worked closely with companies such as UUNET, Teleos, Clear Communications and PictureTel.

As a member of Maine Angels he has invested in early stage technology companies, including Ocean Renewable Power Company, Emergent Music, Axon Labs, Neuroptix and IW Financial. His most successful angel investment to date was backing his longtime friend Jay Borden in Granite Systems, a New Hampshire software firm serving telecom carriers, for which he was the first outside director. Don received his B.A. from Yale University cum laude with distinction in Economics in 1981, concentrating on the economics of data transmission.