About Top Gun

Top Gun is a nine-month program that accelerates the progress of Maine’s most promising early stage, scalable, innovation-based businesses through a combination of curriculum, mentoring and community. First offered in 2009, it will run simultaneously in Portland and Bangor beginning in September 2011.

The class of participating first-time entrepreneurs (8-12 per location) ranges from those in early product development through companies struggling to break $1 million in revenue. They have ambitions to scale their businesses to many millions in revenue, and serve customers beyond state boundaries.  Their ideas are innovative – sometimes technology based, but always bringing something fresh to their prospective customers. The program is selective, looking for the very best in Maine (or moving to Maine), as the modest fees entrepreneurs are charged don’t come close to covering the Top Gun community’s investment.

The Top Gun curriculum brings together three cutting edge components: Silicon Valley startup methods, European business model visualization, and elements of Innovation Engineering™ developed here in Maine. Entrepreneurs re-train their brains to see their opportunities in an entirely different light.  Mentors bring the lessons back down to earth: what should the entrepreneurs be focusing on right now to turn ideas into actions, and actions into viable, sustainable businesses?

Each Top Gun entrepreneur is assigned a lead mentor, who brings their wealth of experiences to bear on accelerating progress. Regular one-on-one meetings ensure that general lessons are made specific, priorities are set, milestones are met, and the Top Gun community is accessed to full advantage. A pool with dozens of “floating mentors” provides a resource for further acceleration and refinement, and participants also enjoy free services from over a dozen professional services partners.

Ten evening sessions bring together a community of 25 to 40 people per location: the entrepreneur class, lead mentors, “floating mentors,” selected sponsors, and at times outside speakers, coming together in a classroom setting. Homework is sent before each session: reading, online videos, and a series of questions related to the topic.

The evening begins with elevator pitch practice. Then, the topic of the evening (such as Thinking BIG, Market Research, Winning Teams, Revenue Models, Raising Equity) is the focus for a half hour talk by one or two expert presenters. After the presentations are breakout sessions: two to three entrepreneurs have a table moderator, plus their lead mentors, plus floating mentors, to review answers to homework questions and apply lessons from the evening's speaker to their specific businesses. These intensive discussions often linger after the evening officially comes to a close.