> there are two separate personas that you need to “create”: The user persona and the buyer persona.
Even more important: stop using personas, start using actual people. I've experienced many startups make unforced errors by conflating people into personas. A better way is to tag people with attributes, such as specific interests, explicit concerns, tasks to be done, usage goals, learning preferences, and the like.
When you switch from personas to actual people, it opens up many more product experiments-- many of which are surprising and may even feel counter-intuitive to founders. Increase your startup chances of success by carefully connecting with your actual users.
Excellent writeup from someone who clearly cares about hitting the intersection of "good for customers, good for himself and investors, and good for employees".
We'd be much better off with people thinking and acting in line with this!
I resonate a lot with these reasons. I definitely know I am not the most optimal employee, but often times the people I clash with are people that I cannot respect. Either
- They think they're higher than me (you cannot collab like that)
- They want it their way, despite there being multiple ways to Rome, and will cut off the conversation with orders, not arguments
- They pretend to be technical and are only making the bureaucratic back-and-forth worse. You can definitely tell when someone knows what they're talking about
Sadly a lot of companies will reward these type of people by putting them in the high seats.
This is really well written and clearly from someone who has loved through it. I think just about all of their observations are correct (except for getting a coach - incredibly detrimental in my experience).
Even more important: stop using personas, start using actual people. I've experienced many startups make unforced errors by conflating people into personas. A better way is to tag people with attributes, such as specific interests, explicit concerns, tasks to be done, usage goals, learning preferences, and the like.
When you switch from personas to actual people, it opens up many more product experiments-- many of which are surprising and may even feel counter-intuitive to founders. Increase your startup chances of success by carefully connecting with your actual users.
We'd be much better off with people thinking and acting in line with this!
- They think they're higher than me (you cannot collab like that)
- They want it their way, despite there being multiple ways to Rome, and will cut off the conversation with orders, not arguments
- They pretend to be technical and are only making the bureaucratic back-and-forth worse. You can definitely tell when someone knows what they're talking about
Sadly a lot of companies will reward these type of people by putting them in the high seats.