The early phases of the method do not vary by industry, so one encoded sequence covers every category and the industry-specific work stays with people.
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From an eight-step manual discovery process to a single 22-step run
Client
Date
Spain-based corporate venture builder
08/2026
The challenge
A Spain-based corporate venture builder designs, validates and prototypes new businesses for large corporate clients. Its discovery phase runs through eight fixed research steps, in the same order on every project in every sector, and every one of them was done by hand. Its constraint was not method but capacity: demand peaks were answered by hiring.
The solution
FifthRow encoded the client's own venture-building playbook as autonomous agent systems. The firm's methodology goes in, step by step, with its own inputs, outputs and sequence; what comes out is a set of systems its consultants run per project, in any sector, producing the same structured deliverables every time.
143,765
analyst-hours equivalent, 67 FTEs8 of 8
discovery steps in one systemDiscovery researcheight steps into one 22-step run
Sequencing and hand-offssteps chained in one system, intake asked once
Systems available16 in production, 7 purpose-built for the method
Analyst-hours equivalent143,765 hours saved; equivalent to 67 FTEs
The engagement started on live work. The firm pointed the platform at the client categories it was already being paid to research that month, to find out how close the output landed to something a client would accept.
Core Activities
- Ran the pilot on live, paying projects from week one, not test cases
- Ran competitive landscape, whitespace, sector and market intelligence systems on live client categories
- Re-ran the same category three and four times across versions, comparing structures against the firm's report formats
- Measured output against the firm's acceptance test: which parts arrive 70, 80 or 90 percent client-ready
The Results
Four weeks of real project work, 10,549 sources analysed, and a decision to move from using catalogue research systems to encoding the firm's own method.
159
research questions on live paying projectsThe firm handed over its playbook document. FifthRow mapped it phase by phase, step by step, against what agents could actually do, defining for each step what it takes in, what it must produce, and what happens in between.
Core Activities
- Mapped playbook phases one and two step by step, analysing on the platform itself where agents could carry the work
- Defined for every step the three things a system needs: inputs, outputs, process
- Added a free-form context variable to the intake, so one system takes any brief – a broad innovation mandate or a narrow product question – with the output structure fixed
- Encoded the eight-step discovery sequence as one system
- Solved the single-intake problem the firm hit alone: category, region and segment asked once, made into a context, passed downstream in order
The Results
A 22-step discovery system that takes one brief and returns global trends, regional overlay, market size and competitors, customer insight, behaviours, jobs to be done, unmet needs and opportunity territories, in the firm's own order.
8 of 8
discovery steps encoded as systemsThe encoded systems went straight onto paying work. The same discovery machinery has been run across every category the firm's clients operate in, in Europe, the Gulf and beyond.
Core Activities
- Ran discovery automation on client categories as they arrived
- Ran the underlying steps alone where a project needed one: jobs to be done, pain points, trend signals, customer voice, whitespace, TAM, value pools, opportunity territories
- Extended into adjacent work the method supports: merger and acquisition targets, regulatory analysis, competitor gaps
- Set systems to run in Spanish and English, so outputs reach clients in the engagement's language
- Kept research on the platform, so context accumulates across projects rather than restarting
The Results
A working research capability that two people operate across every sector the firm sells into, with the same eight-step logic applied whatever the category.
89,198
verified sources behind client researchResearch that a consultant has to reformat is not finished research. The last stage of the work was making the systems produce the firm's deliverables, not generic reports.
Core Activities
- Generated the firm's own deliverable sections directly, including a two-slide layout matching its report template
- Encoded the structure inside the agents, so the final step formats and every run arrives in the same shape
- Took the structures common to the firm's completed client reports and set them into the systems
- Added presentation and document export, so output moves into the firm's branded template without retyping
The Results
Deliverables that arrive in the firm's own format, with the same sections in the same order every time, so the consultant's work starts at interpretation instead of at assembly.
70%+
of the deliverable client-ready on arrivalWhat it proved
The firm chose to use the platform for method rather than research. Its playbook was mapped phase by phase, the eight-step discovery sequence encoded into one system taking a single brief. Seven systems were purpose-built for the method; two people have run 742 studies against 89,198 verified sources on 16 systems in production.
The firm's methodology now runs as software: the playbook is no longer a document to follow but a system that produces the deliverable. A two-person core team runs discovery across every category the firm sells into, in two languages, to the same structure every time. The platform records 143,765 analyst-hours saved, the equivalent of 67 full-time analysts over the period. Demand peaks no longer have to be answered by hiring.
Results
| Metric | Benchmark | Result | Improvement |
|---|---|---|---|
| Discovery steps per project | 8 steps, hand-started and stitched | 1 system, 22 steps, one intake | 8 hand-offs into 1 run |
| Intake effort per project | Category, region, segment re-entered each step | Asked once, passed downstream automatically | 8 intakes reduced to 1 |
| Source material per pass | Desk research, one question at a time | 1,255 on average, up to 1,811 | Two orders of magnitude more |
| Systems available to the team | 0. A written playbook only | 16 in production, 7 purpose-built | Document to running system |
| Client-readiness of the output | Everything done manually | Output is 70%+ client ready right away | Client-ready without a rebuild |
| Analyst-hours saved | Two people carrying client research | 143,765 hours across 742 runs | Equivalent of adding 67 full-time analysts over the period |
Deliverable structure is encoded inside the systems, so research arrives in the shape the client sees rather than as findings someone still has to redraw.
A small core team runs discovery across every sector the firm sells into, in the client's own language, without adding headcount at demand peaks.
The systems reproduce the firm's own sequence and judgement, so what runs on the next project is its method rather than a generic research template.
From weeks of domain research to a venture concept in days
Client
LATAM corporate venture studio
Date
08/2026
Weeks to days
full domain exploration cycleFrom a six-month working group to defined challenges in under an hour
Client
$20B+ global workforce group's social innovation lab
Date
09/2026
77,974
analyst-hours equivalent, 72 FTEsFor Enterprises
ProofSee all
From a standing start to an AI venture serving small businesses
From 72 patents to 4 commercialisation-ready technologies
Cutting a four-month research cycle to six weeks across five validation workstreams
From a weekly newsletter to a self-running innovation radar
A full year's validated-concept target, met in the first quarter
A utility innovation lab that answers its own questions in a day
Finding the next high-growth US metro in five days
FifthRow – The Agentic Consultancy
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