# Stage Narrative Shift > **Mode skill.** Default-enabled on the Stage specialist. - Skill: `ferroxlabs/stage-narrative-shift` (Agent Skill) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add ferroxlabs/stage-narrative-shift` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/ferroxlabs/stage-narrative-shift/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Coding & Dev Tools - Author: FerroxLabs (https://skillmd.com/u/ferroxlabs) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/ferroxlabs/stage-narrative-shift --- # narrative-shift **Mode skill.** Default-enabled on the Stage specialist. ## When to use Use as the **first step** before any deck drafting. Use also when a deck is not landing — the diagnosis is almost always that the shift is weak, generic, or absent. Covers seed and Series A narrative work, investor-update openings, demo-day openers, and founder-bio "why now" statements. A pitch without a named shift is a feature list. This skill produces the one-paragraph spine the rest of the deck hangs from. ## The shift sentence Andy Raskin's macro pattern, condensed to one fillable frame: > *"There's been a fundamental change in the world. [Old world] is ending. [New world] is here. The winners will be the companies that [strategic move]. The losers will be the companies that [opposite move]."* The frame is fillable in any domain. The work is making it true and specific enough that a sceptical investor cannot dismiss it in one line. ## The three-question test Every candidate shift sentence has to pass all three: 1. **Recent.** Is there accelerating evidence in the last 24 months? Older than 24 months and the room asks "where have you been?" Newer than 6 months and the room asks "is this a blip?" 2. **Irreversible.** Is there a structural reason this cannot revert? Regulation, technology cost curves, generational behaviour change, supply-chain reconfiguration. A trend that could reverse next quarter is a marketing observation, not a shift. 3. **Creates new winner criteria.** Does the shift change *what it takes to win* in the buyer's world? If the same companies win after the shift as before, the shift is real but irrelevant to the pitch. A shift that fails any one of the three is rejected. Ask the founder for the next candidate. Iterate until one passes. ## Procedure 1. **List five candidate shifts.** Ask the founder for five things that have changed in their *buyer's* world in the last two years — not five things they care about. 2. **Score each against the three-question test.** Recent / irreversible / new winner criteria. Most will fail at least one. 3. **Pick the shift the company is uniquely positioned to ride.** Of candidates that pass, pick the one where the founders' earned advantage maps to the new winner criterion. 4. **Write the shift sentence in the Raskin frame.** Specific enough that a competitor cannot copy-paste it. 5. **Stress-test against three competitors.** Name three companies in the adjacent space. Does this sentence describe what *they* do? If yes, rewrite until it picks out this company's move, not theirs. 6. **Locate the proof point.** One dataset, news event, or regulatory move that makes the shift undeniable in one citation. This becomes the slide-one proof. 7. **Lock the sentence to `TEAM_MEMORY.md`.** Stamp under `## Pitch`. Coin's market build and Mira's deck cover both depend on it. ## Decision rules - **No shift, no deck.** If no candidate passes, the company is not pitch-ready. Send the founder back to validate before drafting slides. - **Shifts beat trends.** "AI is rising" is a trend. "In 2025, the average B2B buyer evaluated three AI vendors before requesting a demo from any of them" is a shift with operational consequences. - **The shift belongs to the deck, not the company forever.** A new round or new evidence often warrants a new shift. Do not freeze a sentence past its usefulness. - **Old world / new world phrasing must be parallel.** "Old world: ten-person sales teams. New world: AI." is not parallel. "Old world: ten-person sales teams. New world: two-person teams with AI tooling." is parallel and concrete. ## Anti-patterns - **The eternal shift.** Anything that has been true for a decade is not a shift, it is wallpaper. - **The personal shift.** "I got frustrated with X." Decks fund world shifts, not founder origin stories. Save origins for the team slide. - **The vendor shift.** "Companies are adopting more SaaS." This is the vendor's narrative, not the buyer's. The shift must be true from the buyer's seat. - **Two shifts stacked.** Pick one. Two shifts split the room's attention. ## Before / after **Brief:** "Help us frame the opening for a seed deck. We sell a tool that helps small ecommerce stores reply to customer-service emails faster." **Before** (generic, eternal, vendor-side): > *"Customer service is hard for small businesses. They lose customers when replies are slow."* **After** (specific, recent, irreversible, new winner criterion): > *"Old world: a small ecommerce store competed on price and reviews. New world: review platforms weight response time inside scoring, and Google's shopping rank pulls from those scores. Winners reply in under one hour. Losers triage the inbox once a day."* The "after" creates new winner criteria. The "before" describes the company.