Client: two co-founders launching an AI automation agency for small and mid-sized businesses in Saudi Arabia
Engagement: founder workshops and a validation plan
HAM role: venture strategist and mentor
Timing: September to October 2025
160 min
kick-off workshop with the founders
14 days
validation sprint, designed with decision rules
02
The situation
Two founders with an AI automation idea, a list of services and a lot of open questions: which market first, who signs the cheque, what the lead product is, what to charge, and how the founders share the load.
03
What we did
Summarised the business and ran a question-by-question deep dive to find the gaps: vision, first market, decision-maker, lead product, pricing.
Ran a 160-minute kick-off workshop with the founders.
Wrote the validation sprint: a first-market hypothesis, an offer ladder from an audit to a build to a managed service, and a 14-day experiment with green, amber and red decision rules.
Set the agenda for the founders' agreement: ownership, time commitment, what happens if one leaves or stops, how deadlocks get broken, and who covers a client when both are busy.
Wrote the debrief and reset after the second session, with the pre-work and a clear bar for the next one.
04
How we checked it
The sprint had its decision rules written before a single ad ran: what result means scale, what means adjust, what means pivot. Nobody gets to decide what the numbers meant after seeing them.
Pricing went on the list before any client was promised anything. An offer nobody has priced is not ready to sell.
When a session was not ready to run, we reset it rather than run it half-ready. Better to reschedule than to fake progress.
05
Where it stands
The kick-off workshop, the validation plan and the second-session reset were delivered between September and October 2025
The founders own the sprint and the build from here. HAM holds no results from it, so none are claimed.
06
What we built
The business summary, the Q and A deep dive, the validation sprint plan, the offer ladder and the session debrief and reset plan.
07
What's next
The next step sits with the founders: run the sprint, then set pricing on what it shows.
We get into the system, build it from nothing to working, and stay on to grow it.