ABOUT

Flourishing Startups (formerly known as Lean4Flourishing) was founded in 2015 by Ondine Hogeboom and Antony Upward with the vision of enabling the next generation of entrepreneurial leaders. Flourishing Startups seeks to equip innovators, entrepreneurs and change-makers with the competencies that will enable them to transform their communities in ways that benefit people and the planet. Flourishing Startups has six years of experience working with diverse community-based organizations, academic institutions, youth organizations and entrepreneurship enablers across Canada, Europe and Southern Africa. Our multi-disciplinary team brings strong experience in sustainable business model design, early-stage start-up design and women’s entrepreneurship, all centred around Flourishing goals and outcomes: enabling environmental regeneration, social inclusion and upliftment.

Flourishing Startups takes a strongly science-backed, evidence-based and human-centered approach to all its projects. Our programming integrates a new generation of methods and tools while developing competencies that enable leaders to build impact-driven and resilient initiatives, enterprises and projects. Our approach is based on eight years of research and testing and is the subject of multiple peer-review publications.

Our team has designed and delivered dozens of entrepreneurship programs, delivered training to over 3000 entrepreneurs, run over 20 train the trainers with enabling institutions and coached over 300 entrepreneurs one on one.

 

In 2021, we started our rebranding journey as Flourishing Startups.

Our Vision: To enable the possibility for people and the planet to Flourish