A full year's validated-concept target, met in the first quarter

Client

Date

$100B+ global automotive & mobility OEM

08/2026

The challenge

The new-business unit inside a $100B+ global automotive and mobility company runs corporate incubation for North America, and its target was two validated concepts a year. Getting one idea from concept to evidenced proposition took 6 to 9 months. Its mandate then widened to cover 30 to 40 existing product lines.

The solution

FifthRow deployed and maintains a set of configured research systems that the client's own team runs: market-to-concept workflows for new ideas, live microsite testing for validation, and standing signal systems that produce briefs on a fixed cadence without anyone starting them. FifthRow builds and tunes the systems; the client's two-person team consumes the output and redistributes it to other internal teams.

Q1

full-year validation target beaten

45,494

analyst-hours equivalent, 11 FTEs

Idea to validated concept~4 weeks

Concepts vs annual planannual target beaten in Q1

People running the programme2

Analyst-hours equivalent45,494, excluding venture cycles

Consulting cost avoidedfrom ~$344k per concept cycle

01 — LIVE MICROSITE VALIDATION

Internal venture concepts were taken out of slide decks and put in front of real buyers. FifthRow generated non-branded microsites for each concept, ran paid search and social traffic to them, and reported back on which propositions actually pulled demand.

Core Activities

Built each concept a non-branded microsite with copy, pricing and offer
Wrote ad copy with the client, ran paid search and social to budget
Split-tested messaging, audience and pricing within one concept
Reported performance into a dashboard the team reads directly
Fed sign-up and engagement data back, so market response shaped versions, not opinion

The Results

Each concept left this block with real demand evidence attached: traffic, sign-ups, cost per acquisition and the messaging and audience combinations that worked. That evidence, not an internal review, decided which concepts continued. The client's programme lead described the effect as gaining confidence in early-stage concepts "in a more efficient and professional manner", and singled out the speed of building sophisticated landing pages as the biggest single help.

concepts decided on demand evidence

02 — OPPORTUNITY SCREENING & IDEATION

Before anything reached a microsite, the team needed a defensible way to find and filter opportunities. FifthRow configured horizon scanning, entrance evaluation and idea-validation systems the team could run themselves, on any space, in an afternoon.

Core Activities

Built a STEEP horizon scan for any space: macro, technology, consumer, regulatory shifts
Configured an entrance evaluation system for whether to enter a space
Built an idea-validation system testing concepts against market evidence, not enthusiasm
Added competitive landscape and market sizing systems per opportunity
Ran structured ideation across problem spaces, generating concepts in batches

The Results

The team can now take a market space from cold start to a ranked, evidenced shortlist without commissioning anything externally. Every screen leaves behind a reusable configuration, so the second scan in a space costs a fraction of the first.

2,460

analyst-hours equivalent, opportunity screening

03 — ALWAYS-ON SIGNAL SYSTEMS

Three systems run on a fixed schedule with no human trigger. Each watches one of the spaces the unit had already made a priority, and delivers a brief whether or not anyone asked.

Core Activities

Set up three monitoring systems on already-defined challenge spaces
Covered competitor moves, market shifts, jobs-to-be-done, regulation, startups and partners in parallel, synthesised for executives
Set cadences per system – biweekly for two, monthly for the third
Tuned the format so briefs forward to other teams without rewriting
Kept systems running across contract periods, each cycle building on the last

The Results

The unit produces standing intelligence for teams it does not sit in. Those briefs are redistributed internally, which turns a two-person unit into a supplier of intelligence to the wider business rather than a consumer of it.

9,816

analyst-hours equivalent, 2 FTEs

04 — DEEP MARKET SCREENS ON DEMAND

When a specific commercial question arrives, the team runs a deep market screen instead of scoping a consulting engagement. These are the heaviest runs on the account and the team starts them itself.

Core Activities

Built repeatable market screening and opportunity assessment systems for any category
Ran each on demand or on schedule, by category pace
Layered signal convergence and customer signal mapping, so screens read against each other
Handed over the build interface: the team sets up its own systems

The Results

A market question that would previously have gone out to an external firm now returns a sourced answer inside a working week. The heaviest month on the account processed 36,270 sources across 60 runs, driven by two people.

8,428

sources in one analysis

What it proved

Over 25 months, a team that shrank to two people ran 389 research runs and 1,045 agent steps across 74,900 sources, set up 16 configured systems, and tested six venture concepts with real buyers. Three of those systems now run unprompted, processing over 30,000 sources. A target of two validated concepts a year was beaten in the first quarter, and the unit rebuilt its approach around market testing.

What remains is a programme that survives headcount loss. When the venture studio was paused and the team halved, the systems were re-pointed at a new mandate: 30 to 40 existing product lines. Two people set up and rerun them, and the intelligence goes out to partnership and business-unit teams that never touch the platform. Across 389 runs the platform records 45,494 analyst-hours saved, the equivalent of 11 full-time analysts. Output no longer scales with headcount.

Results

Metric	Benchmark	Result	Improvement
Idea to validated concept	6–9 months, manual process	~4 weeks	6×+ faster
Concepts vs annual plan	2 per year	annual target beaten in Q1	4× ahead of plan
Microsite live in market	agency build, weeks	within 24 hours of sign-off	10×+ faster
People running the programme	a full innovation unit	2–3, plus 16 configured systems	A fraction of the headcount
Analyst-hours saved	manual desk and agency research	45,494 hours across 389 runs	Equivalent of adding 11 full-time analysts

SYSTEM-HELD CAPABILITY

The programme's methods sit in configured systems rather than in individual heads, so it keeps running through reorganisation and headcount change.

OWNED CAPABILITY

The team takes a market space from cold start to a ranked, evidenced shortlist without commissioning anything externally.

LIVE MARKET TESTS

Internal concepts go live as credible microsites with paid traffic behind them, so real demand decides which ones continue.

FORWARDABLE BRIEFS

Scheduled briefs arrive in a form other teams can read directly, so a small unit supplies intelligence to groups that never touch the platform.

PARALLEL ORCHESTRATION

Research runs as parallel streams with context passed between them, on a persistent configuration that remembers what the last cycle found.

Recent case studies

See more proof

From a standing start to an AI venture serving small businesses

Client

Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development (ADDED), in partnership with Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI)

Date

08/2026

2 weeks

no pipeline to 200+ screened

Cutting a four-month research cycle to six weeks across five validation workstreams

Client

$25B+ US energy & home-services company

Date

08/2026

6 days

intake brief to ranked report

Matter More

Let's Talk