Creating a persona
Build a reader from the role catalog, narrow it to your target, and add a role the catalog does not cover.
You want a reader for the people you are actually writing to. Creating one takes two decisions: which role that person holds, and how narrow a slice of that role you mean. Some screens in this flow call a role a seat; it is the same thing.
Start from the recommended set
If your workspace has no personas yet and the onboarding website scan found buyer roles, the Personas page opens on a one-time starting point: a Website analyzed badge naming the scanned domain, under Start with the people most likely to evaluate your offer.
Recommended personas to create lists up to three rows, each pre-ticked and each carrying a "Why:" line explaining what pointed at that role. Untick anything that does not belong and press the primary button, which names the number left ticked, as in Create 3 personas. They are built as Standard personas with no facets set, so each reads as the most probable person in that role. To narrow one, build it yourself. Choose manually opens the full catalog instead, and Skip for now returns you to the Playground.
This screen shows only while the library holds zero personas, and never comes back once you have created something. If you skip it and want those roles later, find them yourself in the catalog.
With no recommendations you get the plain empty library instead, headed Create your first persona.
Pick a role
Create persona in the page header opens Create persona — pick a role. These are abstract roles, not finished personas: you choose the role here and narrow it next.
The Functions rail filters by job function with a count beside each one, including zero. The search box is labelled Search roles and counts the catalog in its placeholder, "Search N roles — or type your own". A → Z flips the sort. Roles your workspace created itself group under Your roles, above the shared All roles.
A Proposed for you row of one-tap tiles may sit above the list, captioned "from your knowledge base" or, for a generic fallback role, "a place to start". It disappears as soon as you type in search or choose a function.
Catalog search reads the role title and function label, never the description.
Narrow it to your target
Pressing a role opens the compose step, headed Create persona: "Tune the seat to your market — your persona is ready in seconds." The role sits under Role; Change returns you to the catalog and keeps what you have set.
Everything under Target is optional and every filter narrows the segment: Industry and Company size, both defaulting to Any, and a row of market chips with Add market opening a picker of regions and countries.
Markets have rules that are easy to miss. The order you pick them in matters — the first is the dominant market. Global is exclusive: choosing it clears every other market, and choosing another clears Global. Five is the maximum. A market added through Add market is saved to the whole workspace, up to twelve. Its × takes it off the workspace row and, if it was selected, off this persona too.
Under What you've seen · optional sit six toggles for things you have actually observed: Just raised, Hiring spree, New in role, Just launched, Team restructuring and Evaluating new tools. Leave them alone if you are guessing — "Not sure? Skip — the persona already models typical pressures for this seat."
A live Segment breadth line reports where you landed. With nothing picked it reads "Broad — the most probable read. Every facet and signal narrows it."; one or two picks make it Focused, three or more Narrow.
Create without research builds the Standard persona immediately and returns you to the library with it in the list. On a plan without research the same button is primary and reads Create persona. Start research takes the longer route, covered in Researched personas.
A role the catalog does not cover
Search for the role first. If nothing matches, the screen becomes a door: "No role for “Head of Procurement” yet", with Create this role below.
The step is headed Describe the role and needs a Role title of up to 120 characters and the nearest Function — "closest fit is fine — the title and your answers carry the specifics". The app then asks a short set of questions about the role, one at a time, each with quick-reply chips and a Skip, followed by Anything else about this seat · optional. Your answers steer the research and nothing more; your words are never pasted into the persona.
The finished role joins your catalog under Your roles and is reusable afterwards. A custom role is always researched, so it needs Plus or Pro; on other plans Create this role carries a PRO chip and opens the Add your own roles dialog.
When a create is refused
- "This workspace hit its persona limit." — a workspace holds at most 500 personas.
- "This workspace hit its custom role limit." — at most 100 custom roles.
- "Could not create the persona. Please try again." — the build failed; nothing was saved.
- "Your active workspace changed elsewhere. Nothing was applied, and this screen has been refreshed." — you switched workspace in another tab. Nothing landed in the wrong place; redo it on the reloaded screen.