The research behind Fonda

A method built on peer-reviewed studies

We mapped every step of Fonda against published research on early-stage founders and on people moving from a job into their own business, and shaped the steps around what it found. The work comes from researchers at institutions such as EPFL, Bocconi University, the University of Virginia's Darden School and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. Here is what some of it says, and what it means inside Fonda.

1. 01

   Start from what you have

   Saras Sarasvathy (Darden) studied how expert entrepreneurs make decisions and found that they start from the means they already have, meaning who they are, what they know and whom they know, rather than from a fixed goal. [1]

   In Fonda: The first step is About you, and the ideas Fonda suggests are matched to your skills and background.

2. 02

   Test your idea like a scientist

   In a randomized controlled trial with 116 Italian startups, researchers at Bocconi University taught one group of founders to treat their idea as a set of hypotheses and test them rigorously. Those founders performed better than the control group, and they pivoted more often. [2]

   In Fonda: The Validate phase asks you to study the market, list the key risks and talk to customers before you get any verdict.

3. 03

   Learn from customers, then build the smallest version

   Dean Shepherd (University of Notre Dame) and Marc Gruber (EPFL) reviewed the academic research behind the Lean Startup and describe its building blocks: validated learning from customers, the minimum viable product, and the decision to keep going or pivot. [3]

   In Fonda: Interviews and the Verdict come before the business plan and the MVP plan.

4. 04

   Focus on the decisions that matter first

   A 2024 review of 56 studies from top journals found that the most critical early decisions are about the core product and team, and about which market segment and partners to choose. Financial and operational decisions come later. [4]

   In Fonda: Your market and your customers are settled before the business plan, and legal setup comes after that.

5. 05

   Use fear of failure, don't fight it

   Cacciotti and colleagues showed that fear of failure in entrepreneurs is a reaction to specific obstacles, and that it can push founders to act as well as hold them back. [5]

   In Fonda: A Verdict is go, refine or pivot, with the reasons behind it and a clear next step, rather than a simple pass or fail.

6. 06

   Build confidence by doing

   A systematic review by Newman and colleagues found that a founder's belief in their own ability is closely linked to whether they go on to start a business, and that one of the main ways this belief grows is by completing real tasks successfully. [6]

   In Fonda: The work is split into 14 steps you can actually finish, one at a time.

7. 07

   Change careers by experimenting

   Herminia Ibarra's research on career changers shows that people find their way into a new career by trying small things first, not by planning one big jump. [7]

   In Fonda: You can test an idea on the side, step by step, before you quit anything.

Research in every report

When Fonda sizes your market, maps competitors or writes your business plan, it researches the web first and links every key claim to its source, so you can open it and check. These example business plans were made with Fonda:

• 118
  sources
  AI Front Desk
• 149
  sources
  Nutrition coaching for people on weight-loss medication
• 133
  sources
  Maintenance tracking for small factories and workshops

References

1. [1]Sarasvathy, S. D. (2001). Causation and effectuation: Toward a theoretical shift from economic inevitability to entrepreneurial contingency. Academy of Management Review, 26(2), 243-263. Read the paper
2. [2]Camuffo, A., Cordova, A., Gambardella, A., & Spina, C. (2020). A scientific approach to entrepreneurial decision making: Evidence from a randomized control trial. Management Science, 66(2), 564-586. Read the paper
3. [3]Shepherd, D. A., & Gruber, M. (2021). The lean startup framework: Closing the academic-practitioner divide. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 45(5), 967-998. Read the paper
4. [4]González M., M. A., Terzidis, O., Lütz, P., & Heblich, B. (2024). Critical decisions at the early stage of start-ups: A systematic literature review. Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, 13. Read the paper
5. [5]Cacciotti, G., Hayton, J. C., Mitchell, J. R., & Giazitzoglu, A. (2016). A reconceptualization of fear of failure in entrepreneurship. Journal of Business Venturing, 31(3), 302-325. Read the paper
6. [6]Newman, A., Obschonka, M., Schwarz, S., Cohen, M., & Nielsen, I. (2019). Entrepreneurial self-efficacy: A systematic review of the literature on its theoretical foundations, measurement, antecedents, and outcomes, and an agenda for future research. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 110, 403-419. Read the paper
7. [7]Ibarra, H. (2003). Working Identity: Unconventional Strategies for Reinventing Your Career. Harvard Business School Press.