Neo Steinhoff

Apply · three places a cohort

Residency

Six weeks in Dubai, building your own thing, at our desks.

Three people, six weeks, one room. You bring a project that is yours and you work on it from our office, next to people doing the same. It is closer to a residency in the arts sense than an accelerator: no curriculum, no demo day, no cohort photo.

What you get from the room is the thing that is hard to buy — being surrounded by people who are working, in a city that starts early, with someone to ask when you are stuck. What you do not get is a programme that runs your day for you.

I take no fee and no equity. That is deliberate: the moment there is a cheque or a cap table involved, the selection stops being about who would use the six weeks best.

Apply

What you get

  • A desk in our Dubai office for six weeks, with everything a desk needs.
  • Weekly ninety-minute session with me on whatever you are stuck on.
  • Friday reviews — the three residents and whoever is around, showing the week's actual work.
  • Introductions where I know the person, which in Dubai is a meaningful number of them.
  • A visa support letter for the entry-permit application, if your nationality needs one.

What this isn’t

  • Not funded. There is no stipend, no cheque, and no expenses budget — you cover flights, accommodation, food, and visa yourself.
  • Not an accelerator. No curriculum, no demo day, no investor introductions as a structural promise.
  • Not investment, and I take no equity. If we later invest, that is a separate conversation with separate paperwork, and it is not on the table during the six weeks.
  • Not accommodation. We will point you at the neighbourhoods and the two agents worth talking to, but the lease is yours.
  • Not a visa. We write the support letter; the application, the fee, and the outcome are between you and the UAE.
  • Not a soft landing. Dubai in summer is 45°C and expensive, and six weeks is long enough for that to stop being novel.

What it costs

No fee, no equity — you cover your own costs

  • Budget roughly USD 3,000–5,000 for the six weeks: accommodation is the big line, then food, transport, and the visa.
  • Flights are on you and vary more than anything else on the list.
  • The desk, the sessions, and the introductions cost nothing. That is the whole offer, and it is not a discount off something.
  • If money is the only reason you cannot come, say so in the application. I cannot promise anything, but I would rather know than have you not apply.

This is for you if

  • You have a project that is yours, that you would work on anyway, and that six uninterrupted weeks would visibly move.
  • You can fund six weeks abroad without it becoming the crisis in the middle of your residency.
  • You are good company in a small room for six weeks. This matters more than the project does.

It isn’t, if

  • You want funding, or you are treating this as a route to it.
  • You need structure, a curriculum, or someone assigning you work.
  • You would be arriving to find an idea rather than to build one.

How it runs

  1. 1

    You apply

    30 minutes

    With the project and the honest state of it.

  2. 2

    I read it

    Within 7 days

    Everyone gets an answer. Three places, and usually far more applications.

  3. 3

    Call

    45 minutes

    Forty-five minutes. Mostly about whether six weeks here is the right use of your money.

  4. 4

    A second call, with the others

    45 minutes

    You meet the other shortlisted people. The room is the product, so the room gets a say.

  5. 5

    Offer and logistics

    6+ weeks before

    Support letter, dates, and the honest cost sheet before you book anything.

Apply

The form

Long on purpose — the answers are the screen, and a form that takes two minutes gets answered by people who have thought about it for two minutes. It saves as you type on this device, so you can leave and come back.

Step 1 of 425%

You

The short bit. Everything after this is about the work.

Where the reference code and the answer go.

City and country.

Links

Whatever shows the work. All optional — one good link beats four thin ones.

Already applied? Check where it has got to.