Why Now Consulting: Understand, Express & Benefit From Your Timing Advantage

Founders are obsessed with honing their skills in design, development, customer discovery, analytics, sales, presenting, and more.

But there's one question you need to answer to give yourself an extra edge.

That's the timing, or "why now," question.

That is, why is this the right time for your specific product to exist? What trends impact the potential success of your product? How should you tell that story to potential investors and team members?

I'm fascinated with questions like these.

For a while I quietly researched the topic and ran workshops as I learned. Recently, I pulled that all together in a book called Why Now: How Good Timing Makes Great Products. If you're interested in benefitting from timing analysis and learning lots of case studies and actionable frameworks, you'll love the book.

But I'm here to tell you about something new. Apart from the book, I'm now offering this knowledge and experience in high-impact consulting as well.

If there's a book, why are you now offering consulting?

Because people reach out to me all the time on this topic! Understanding timing and then choosing where to focus your limited resources pays off. Spend your time on products that are more likely to be supported by a convergence of trends, or what I called "Timing Drivers." Understand how timing impacts your business model. Then learn to express those findings to potential investors, team members, and new hires. That and much more.

Think of me as the book plus all the experience that went into writing it. I'll take you through my timing frameworks as they fit your situation, relevant case studies, and will be a resource for you to work through what many VCs recognize as one of the most important reasons behind startup success (timing again).

Having individual consulting conversations on the "why now" question will help you beyond what the book can do.

What's included?

There are two options for this.

There's the "Lightning Analysis":

• It's fast. I'll use my experience on the "why now" topic plus an hour of background analysis of your product concept, the way you express your investment readiness, and more. We'll then discuss over a 1-hour Zoom meeting.
• It's affordable. I priced this similar to the cost of a dinner for two (OK, a nice dinner with inflation).

Then there's the Monthly Retainer:

• 1 hour of background analysis and four 1-hour (weekly) Zoom meetings.
• This is also affordable but designed for companies that need longer-term involvement or that might have multiple products. We will discuss product decisions, how to pitch them, and more.

How do I know what it will be like to work with you?

Well, I did write a book on the topic...

And I've workshopped, presented, and spoken about Why Now for groups including:

• Innov8rs Learning Labs
• The Changelog (episode 590)
• Stanford ASES Summit
• Innovation Storytellers (episode 158)
• The Corporate Accelerator Forum
• Accelerators, Incubators, and university classes...

Still not sure? Here are some testimonials...

“The Timing Workshop with Paul was quite ‘timely’ for our premium Edtech SaaS company. During the session, Paul guided us to identify and reflect on the drivers that impact our market potential and importantly, how to express those drivers. Walking away from the session, we also gained the ability to answer questions supporting our choices as we prepare for a transformational fundraise resulting in some key strategic decisions. Thanks to Paul, we validated our path forward in a straightforward and considered way.” — Prasad Gollakota, Chief Content Officer, Finance Unlocked

“The Why Now workshop helped me step back and see the big picture. As I worked through Paul’s ‘why now’ drivers and researched other companies it helped me see the importance of timing. In our case, we started as an idea a couple years ago and now, as our product is ready for market we want to know how to future-proof it.” — Sara Tan, Founder, Novalearn

“The Why Now workshop put things in perspective. You can be passionate about something, but if the ‘now’ isn’t working for you yet, you might not be able to get it off the ground. It answered questions like: Why do projects take off the way they do? What other forces are in play to flywheel this into traction?” — Jeffrey Broer, Venture Advisor, Kophy

And here are some comments on the book:

How do we get started?

After you purchase, you'll receive a link to schedule a call with me. Before the call, you'll be able to send relevant information for me to look over.