User Persona Development for Startups

“Personas are pointless.” I used to disagree. Then I agreed. Now? "It depends." Once, I spent six weeks building a set of personas (you can see one below). Blood, sweat, and not-so-fun tears. I put everything I knew into them which, to be fair, wasn’t much back then. I couldn’t sleep the night before the big reveal. And then... ↳ "Oh yeah, we already knew that." ↳ "This isn't our exact focus anymore" ↳ Nods but no action A big old flop. So, can personas be pointless? Absolutely. - If they’re made in isolation - If they aren’t tied to real decisions - If they don’t change how people work But when they do work, it’s because they’re built for decision-making, not lamination. Here are 5 ways to make personas actually useful, based on years of trial, error, and one too many sad personas gathering dust in Google Drive: 1. Run an “Information Needs” workshop before you start Ask your PMs, designers, and devs: “What do you wish you knew about our users to make better decisions?” Document their needs → design your research to answer them → bake those answers into your persona. 2. Build proto-personas collaboratively to surface assumptions early Before you do any research, map out what people think they know. Use sticky notes color-coded by: - Assumption - Analytics - Existing research This reveals gaps, misalignment, and gives you a jumpstart on where to dig deeper during interviews and information to include in your personas. 3. Anchor personas in journey stages, not personality traits Forget personality sliders or random hobbies. Instead, map: - What users are trying to accomplish - What frustrates them at each stage - Which tools they use and why If your persona doesn’t help answer: “What would break their flow here?," rewrite it. 4. Activate personas through workshops, not PDFs Don’t “present” personas, use them. Host an ideation workshop where teams solve for a key need or pain point. Or run a mini-hackathon based on persona insights. 5. Embed personas into rituals and review them quarterly Add a persona lens to roadmap planning: “Which persona does this initiative support?” Post them in your workspace, tag bugs/features with persona names, and revisit them every quarter to update insights. So no, personas aren’t inherently pointless. But pointless personas are everywhere. Always ask yourself: “Will this persona change what we do next?” // If you're struggling to put personas together and don't know what "bad" or "good" really look like, watch this video where I share and diagnose all the problems (and good parts) of the personas I created through the years: https://lnkd.in/etMeeSS9

In my work as a growth advisor, I have a lot of conversations with Founders. Their most common question: “What’s the marketing secret to scaling my startup?” The answer isn’t really a secret: Develop high-converting messaging. That is, messaging that is compelling to your target audience and differentiated from alternatives in your category. Extra points for having personality. Of course, this is much easier said than done. There are TONS of messaging frameworks out there. Some are too academic and hard to put into action. Others are superficial and lead to generic messaging that doesn't land with anyone. After years of tinkering, I’ve come to rely on a proven six step framework that we use for our clients at Lantern: 1. Build a Customer Persona 2. Construct the Benefit Ladder  3. Develop the Brand Pyramid 4. Anticipate the Barriers 5. Test with Target Consumers 6. Launch & Iterate Today’s post will cover the first step and over the next few weeks, I’ll lay out the others in enough detail that you can put this framework into action for your business. Step 1: Build an In-Depth Customer Persona The most important thing to do when marketing a startup is to ground yourself in your customer. This goes beyond “we're targeting millennials.” Instead, paint a complete picture of who you are speaking to. This allows you to craft resonant messaging that speaks directly to your customers' needs and beliefs. Consider: • Basic demographics: Age, gender, location, and income level. Who is this person on paper?  • Motivations: Your customer’s pain points and desired outcomes. What problems do they want to solve? • Awareness journey: How they discover your product. Where is the friction and points of delight? • Perceptions: Your customers beliefs about your category. What opinions do they already have? • Decision process: Their path to purchase. How do they research? Who is involved in their decision to buy?  • Ideal experience: The best case user interaction with your product. How can you deliver their dream scenario? Here’s an example of how this work informs marketing strategy: Both Signos and Sequence are weight management startups, targeting women in their 30s and 40s who want to lose weight. Yet they have totally different consumer personas based on different core insights. The Signos insight: many consumers want to be in control of their journey and don’t believe in easy solutions. They want to put in the work — they just need guidance on how to make their weight loss efforts more successful.  The Sequence insight: another segment of consumers have tried everything to lose weight and have given up. They feel stuck. They need a significant push to restart their weight loss journey. These are two companies in the same category with totally different consumers. These insights led my team to devise totally different messaging for each company. What are some other pieces that traditional "target consumer" frameworks miss? 

 Design Personas That Actually Work in UX! Stop surface-level thinking; start understanding Real personas = research + meaningful insights. Why Personas Matter ✅ Show who users are and what they need to do ✅ Complement Jobs-to-Be-Done frameworks 🤔 Different focus: • JTBD → user needs & outcomes • Personas → behavior, mindset, and goals Build Useful Personas ✅ Base them on deep user research ✅ Visualize users, goals, motivations 🚫 Avoid demographics-only → prevents stereotypes ✅ Include thought process, background, “a day in the life” ✅ Always include at least one persona with a disability Add Context & Story ✅ Include pain points & product usage ✅ List habits: daily, often, rarely ✅ Capture needs, wants, and fears ✅ Prioritize key points for each team role Personas + JTBD = Powerful UX Insights Both help shift focus to real user needs. Remember: no invented details—always root in actual research 💡 How does your team bring personas to life?

I have made the mistake of seeing myself as a typical user of my product too many times. Why is it bad? How to avoid it? As the hilarious picture shows, the product creators may understand their market, but still not capture the real needs of the users. You, the Product Manager, are to be the user and business ambassador, not the actual user. Why is your perspective likely wrong? • Lack of diverse point of view: single perspective • You can't possibly know all your users' challenges • Being in tech gives you instincts no tech users miss • You will miss innovation that only users can uncover • You carry inherent biases and assumptions, as any individual • Being a product expert makes you blind to beginner challenges    ...and likely more. "Ok, smart guy, - you may say - but how do you ensure you design the right product for your users?" Way ahead of you! Here are a few actions a typical Product Manager can invest in, to ensure it's the users's perspective driving product development, not the limited PM ones: 1) KYC (Know Your Customer) client research With the work done by a dedicated company, you will deeply understand your users' needs, behaviors, and motivations. 2) Building user personas Create detailed profiles representing different user types to guide design and development decisions. Use data to identify usage patterns that can be labeled as specific types of users and polish them in a dedicated workshop. Speaking of which: 3) "Jobs to be Done" workshop With this you will identify the tasks users aim to accomplish, focusing on their goals rather than features. This is the ultimate way for PMs to identify the right problems to solve! 4) Dealing with data, not opinions Goes without saying, base decisions on analytics and user data instead of personal hunches. Especially your own. 5) Quantitative discovery (polls and surveys) Use surveys to gather measurable user insights. If you ask the right questions, you will get a representable number. You can also look for those in your reporting suite. 6) Introducing MVP quickly to understand users' reactions You can always launch a Minimum Viable Product early to collect feedback and iterate. Even embed some polls with it to gather live feedback! 7) Qualitative discovery (user interviews and observations) Engage directly with users to gain an in-depth understanding of their experiences. They will tell you whether your prototype resonates with them and they can complete assigned tasks easily. There you have it, many ways to keep your opinion away from good Product decisions. So, have you ever assumed you knew what your users wanted, only to be surprised by their actual needs? How do you get to understand your users? Sound off in the comments! #productmanagement #productmanager #userexperience P.S. To become a Product Manager who truly understands and serves your users, be sure to check out my courses on www.drbartpm.com :)

You can't build a product without understanding your users. Let's talk about User Personas -> A powerful tool to get inside the minds of your customers and create products they'll love. So, how do you craft effective User Personas? - Do your homework, gather data through surveys, interviews, and user analytics to understand who your customers really are. - Dive into their world, identify their goals, motivations, and pain points. What keeps them up at night? - Keep it realistic, base your personas on actual data, not assumptions or stereotypes. - Make them accessible, share these personas with your team to keep everyone aligned and user-focused. - Use them consistently, refer back to your personas throughout the product development process to ensure you're meeting real needs. Excited to share more insights on creating products that truly resonate with the customer. Let's connect and explore the world of Product Management together! #UserPersonas #ProductManagement #UserExperience #PMTips #CustomerFocus