Pitching
How to Build a Why Now Slide for Your Pitch Deck
Turn a market, customer or technology change into a sourced timing argument, with a worksheet that tests causality and readiness.
What you will learn
- Separate external timing from internal readiness
- Build and source a causal why-now argument
- Test alternative explanations and adoption uncertainty
Build a why now slide by identifying a specific change that makes the customer’s problem newly solvable or more urgent, then connecting that change to your business. A trend is not enough. Explain what changed, when, for whom, and why the same approach was less practical before.
Start with current primary evidence for the change and your own dated readiness evidence. If the argument depends on a law, technical capability or cost claim, verify the actual scope. Do not invent a regulatory deadline or imply that a broad trend guarantees demand.
Separate market change from company readiness
Sequoia’s pitching framework asks why the opportunity exists now rather than earlier. Answer two separate questions: what changed outside the company, and what is true about your ability to respond?
External change might involve customer behavior, infrastructure availability, distribution, cost, or a relevant rule. Internal readiness might be a tested product, a trained team, or access to necessary inputs. “We launched this month” describes company timing, not automatically market timing.
Build a causal chain
- State the change narrowly. Name the affected segment and effective period.
- Use a primary source. Prefer the responsible institution, technical documentation, original dataset or direct customer evidence.
- Explain the consequence. Show how the change alters cost, feasibility, incentives or the customer workflow.
- Connect your approach. Explain why the product is positioned to respond, without claiming exclusivity absent proof.
- Identify friction. Adoption, procurement, integration or trust can lag technical possibility.
- Define a test. State what evidence would weaken or strengthen the timing claim.
A chart trending upward does not establish each link. If the chain requires three unsupported assumptions, simplify the argument or label it a hypothesis.
Work an evidence-led timing example
Fictional teaching case: LumenRoute is designing a scheduling tool for a defined class of small delivery operators. It claims: “The world is ready for real-time logistics.” That is not yet a timing argument.
Completed why-now argument, all facts illustrative
| Link | Illustrative entry | Evidence needed in a real deck |
|---|---|---|
| Before | Target operators manually entered status from separate devices. | Dated workflow research with segment scope. |
| Change | A specified device supplier now offers an interface the team can use. | Supplier documentation, availability and access conditions. |
| Implication | The prototype can receive an event without manual re-entry. | Observed technical test under defined conditions. |
| Readiness | The team has demonstrated one route workflow with synthetic data. | Test record, limitations and development status. |
| Remaining uncertainty | Operators may not change their dispatch process. | Permissioned workflow trial and buying-process evidence. |
A truthful illustrative headline is: A new device interface makes a previously manual handoff testable. It is less grand than “logistics is transformed,” but the mechanism is clear. The narrower claim can strengthen as real adoption evidence arrives.
This example does not describe an actual supplier, integration, law or Finta capability. Replace every invented input with current evidence before using the structure in a real pitch.
Pressure-test the story
Ask a skeptical teammate: Could a competitor have done this two years ago? Is the change available to the actual customer segment? Is it accessible on workable terms? Does the customer care enough to change behavior? Does an incumbent benefit from the same change?
If the answer is “we do not know,” add an evidence task. Do not turn an unknown into a false urgency claim. If the argument depends on regulation, have counsel check applicability and wording; a disclaimer alone cannot verify a legal claim.
Change and affected customer: [ ]
Before condition and date: [ ]
New condition / effective period: [ ]
Primary source / locator / verified date: [ ]
Mechanism connecting change to customer job: [ ]
Company readiness evidence: [ ]
Adoption friction and competing explanations: [ ]
What would falsify the timing claim: [ ]
Next validation / owner / date: [ ]
Slide headline / evidence note: [ ]Verify the final slide
Common failures are substituting market size for timing, claiming “AI changes everything,” using a historical statistic as current, and treating an announcement as generally available infrastructure. Show dates and access conditions when they matter.
- One specific change is identifiable.
- A primary source supports its actual scope.
- The consequence follows from the change.
- Company readiness is separate from market availability.
- Remaining customer-adoption uncertainty is visible.
Connect the timing argument to the solution mechanism and use the headline-sequence exercise to place it in the deck.