Step 2 of 11 — Customers
Building customer personas that actually help you decide
A persona isn't a marketing poster — it's a focused description of one specific person you're building for, so you can ask yourself "would Priya actually want this?" at every step.
Why this matters
"Students" isn't a customer — it's a category. You can't interview a category. But you can interview Priya, 22, BCom final year at a Jaipur college, and her friend Rohan, 21, BBA first year in Nagpur. Personas force you to pick one specific person as your north star. Every feature, every message, every price decision gets a simple gut-check: would Priya actually want this, pay for this, recommend this?
What you'll do in this step
- Create 1–3 personas representing the specific people you want to help first.
- For each, fill in their Job To Be Done, their key frustration, goals, and what they currently use to cope.
- Group related personas under a "segment" if you have more than one customer type (e.g., Students vs. Parents).
A real example
If Ananya's idea is internship help for Tier-2 college students, her first persona might look like this.
Name & role
Priya Sharma · 22 · Final-year BCom, Jaipur
Job to be done
Land a summer internship in marketing before graduation so she has a story to tell in final placement interviews.
Key frustration
She scrolls Internshala and LinkedIn twice a day, but doesn't know what to say in cover letters and has never gotten a response.
Goals
A paid or unpaid internship at a consumer brand she's heard of — Nykaa, boAt, Zomato — or any CPG with a real marketing team.
What she uses today
Internshala (applies daily, no responses), LinkedIn (lurks, rarely posts), WhatsApp group from campus placement cell, asking seniors informally.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Inventing demographics you can't verify — "Priya, 22, household income ₹8-12L" sounds precise but you made it up.
- Only one persona that's basically you — your experience is one data point, not a pattern.
- Too many personas upfront — start with one or two you genuinely know people in. You can add more as you learn.
How Margawise helps
- AI generates starter personas from your idea — you then edit to match real people you know.
- Each persona links to the problems, assumptions, and interviews that reference it, so you see your whole journey through her eyes.
- Segments help when you have clearly different audiences (e.g., the student AND the parent paying the fee).
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