OCTOBER 22, 2025 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM EDT

This October’s C4FE we have invited Ondine Hogeboom to speak about the Flourishing Startup Method (FSM), an approach that blends Lean Startup principles with sustainability-as-flourishing. FSM provides the scaffolding to create enterprises that enable people, communities, and the planet to thrive, while filling critical gaps in today’s startup development, support, and education. Building on the strengths of Lean Thinking and Design Thinking, FSM broadens the focus beyond efficiency and customer-centred iteration to include individual flourishing, social equity, ecological stewardship, and long-term resilience. It also incorporates systems design tools such as the Flourishing Business Canvas to support the design of the next generation of businesses.

In a world facing accelerating environmental and social challenges, organizations that fail to adapt will struggle to survive. If we continue to rely on the same approaches to business creation, we will reproduce the same models, cultures, and practices. FSM provides a tested, practical guide for designing enterprises that break this cycle and open new possibilities for flourishing futures.

Since its introduction in the 2015 paper Lean Startup and Its Application in the Social Impact Sector, FSM has been applied with more than 12,000 entrepreneurs and practitioners worldwide, published in the Journal of Business Models, and is the focus of ongoing research with Flourishing Startups, the University of Halmstad (Sweden), Georgian College, and the Flourishing Enterprise Institute. A book on FSM is forthcoming in 2026.
In this interactive session, participants will:

• Identify gaps and challenges in the current startup design and the support ecosystem.
• Explore the steps of FSM
• Actively apply FSM to your own business or organizational context.
• Learn from real-world applications of FSM, including successes and challenges entrepreneurs have encountered.