Why does Segment vs. Persona matter?
They answer different questions and get confused constantly. A segment tells you how big the opportunity is and where to find them, so it has to be countable. A persona tells you what to build and what to say, so it has to be specific about someone's day. Founders who only have a segment build things nobody feels strongly about; founders who only have a persona cannot tell you how many of those people exist.
What does Segment vs. Persona look like in practice?
"Independent dental practices with two to five chairs" is a segment: you could buy a list of them. "The office manager who arrives at 7:30, handles the phone during cleanings, and rebooks patients from memory" is a persona. The first tells you the market might be worth pursuing. The second tells you the product should work one-handed and never lose a call.
What are the common mistakes with Segment vs. Persona?
- Writing a persona with demographics and a stock photo but no description of the problem or the workflow.
- Treating a segment as a persona and building for an abstraction nobody recognizes.
- Inventing personas in a room instead of deriving them from actual conversations.
- Maintaining five personas this early. One or two you understand deeply beat five you assembled.
Where the term comes from
Alan Cooper dates the technique to 1983, well before he wrote it up. While designing a project management program he interviewed a woman named Kathy who worked in "traffic" at an advertising agency, and began talking through design problems as her rather than in the abstract. She became the first persona. The method reached the public in his 1999 book The Inmates Are Running the Asylum.
Alan Cooper, "The origin of personas", Cooper Journal, 2008 ↗Related concepts
- Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)A description of the specific kind of customer your product serves best, precise enough that you can tell whether any given company or person qualifies.
- User, Buyer, and ChampionThree roles that are often three different people: the one who uses the product daily, the one who controls the money, and the one who argues for it internally.