From a standing start to an AI venture serving small businesses

Client

Date

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

08/2026

The challenge

Abu Dhabi wanted the AI research talent already inside the country turned into companies serving its small businesses. Nothing existed to do it with: no cohort, no venture, and SME guidance that reached businesses only through advisors handling one enquiry at a time.

The solution

FifthRow ran the programme end to end as one pipeline: an AI talent pool and a policy mandate in, a soft-launched product with real users out. ADDED held the go/no-go at every stage gate.

2 weeks

from no pipeline to 200+ screened candidates

27%

beta sign-up rate

University outreach10+ universities across the UAE and the wider region

Candidate pipeline200+ screened in 2 weeks

Ventures in market1 product soft-launched to real small businesses

Beta sign-up rate27%

Time to a launched product12–18 months typical, 4 months of mentored build here

01 — TALENT SOURCING & OUTREACH

The programme opened with a direct recruitment push into universities across the UAE and the wider region rather than an open call. Applications were screened against a single standard so a cohort could be assembled in weeks rather than an academic season.

Core Activities

Ran outreach programmes at more than 10 universities across the UAE and the wider region
Opened and administered the application process end to end
Screened over 200 candidates against a common selection standard
Shortlisted the strongest applicants for an in-person selection bootcamp

The Results

More than 200 applications inside two weeks, narrowed to a shortlist of 40+ candidates. ADDED went from no pipeline to a full cohort before the first teaching session.

200+

candidates sourced in two weeks

02 — SELECTION BOOTCAMP

The shortlist went through a working bootcamp, not an assessment centre. Candidates formed teams, took ideas through validation and market testing, and built toward an MVP – so the selection decision was made on what they produced, not on what they proposed.

Core Activities

Ran ideation and idea-validation sessions with the shortlisted cohort
Put early ideas through market testing before any build commitment
Facilitated team formation across the cohort
Took teams through MVP build fundamentals and judged output, not pitches

The Results

One winning team emerged from the bootcamp with a concept ADDED backed: an AI chatbot serving small businesses across the emirate. That team entered a four-month mentored build.

40+

founders assessed on what they built rather than what they pitched

03 — VALIDATION & MVP BUILD

Before the build started, the concept was tested with the people it was meant to serve. Focus groups validated the product concept, and the datasets that would carry regional context into the answers were assembled in parallel with development.

Core Activities

Ran focus group sessions with target small business users and validated the concept
Developed and narrowed the chatbot concepts against that feedback
Gathered and structured the datasets the product needed for relevance to Abu Dhabi's SME base
Mentored the winning team through the build: feature implementation, testing, bug fixing
Took the client's written review of the prototype back into the product before launch

The Results

A working MVP chatbot in user acceptance testing, built on validated concepts and regionally grounded data, plus a finished landing page and launch collateral ready for release. A structured client review then reset the product before launch, on the points that mattered most to the authority: how completely it covered its remit, how directly it answered, and how it presented itself.

4 months

of mentored build to an MVP in user acceptance testing

04 — SOFT LAUNCH & BETA TESTING

The MVP went out to real small business users as a soft launch, with a product demo run in parallel to collect structured feedback on answer quality and satisfaction.

Core Activities

Soft-launched the MVP and ran a structured beta with real SME users
Ran a product demo to collect feedback on response quality and user satisfaction
Turned beta feedback into a prioritised iteration list for the next release
Built the commercialisation strategy: government endorsements, partner alliances, distribution
Completed handover of the product and the roadmap to ADDED

The Results

A soft-launched product with a 27% sign-up rate and actionable feedback from beta testers. Users rated the responses and the natural language handling highly, and asked for the specific changes that shaped the next release, from how an answer is paced to how the product asks a clarifying question.

27%

sign-up rate from beta traffic

What it proved

Outreach at more than 10 universities produced over 200 candidates in two weeks. Forty-plus went through the selection bootcamp and one team came out of it. Four months of mentored build turned that team's concept into an MVP chatbot in user acceptance testing, validated in focus groups and grounded in regional data. It soft-launched to real small businesses at a 27% sign-up rate, with the feedback needed to plan the next release already in hand.

ADDED finished the programme holding three things it did not have in October: a working product with users, a commercialisation strategy backed by government endorsements and partner alliances, and a recruitment-to-launch pipeline it can run again on the next cohort. Feature expansion and new distribution channels were scoped against beta evidence rather than assumption. The advisory content the authority already published became a channel that answers a small business directly, at any hour, in its own regional context.

Results

MetricBenchmarkResultImprovement

Cohort recruitment time

Benchmark: 8–12 weeksResult: 2 weeks

4–6× faster

Concept to soft-launched product

Benchmark: 12–18 months typicalResult: 4 months of mentored build

3–4× faster

Candidate pipeline

Benchmark: noneResult: 200+ sourced, 40+ shortlisted

new capability

Ventures soft-launched