Personas Don’t Buy Your Product — Real People Do

If you want to build solutions people truly need, start by listening to their voices, not your assumptions.

At one time, personas were considered the holy grail of user understanding. I remember spending entire days in my early UX career meticulously crafting fictional characters—names, ages, job titles, and even family backgrounds—to make them appear as “real” as possible. But when I moved into product management, it became abundantly clear:

Personas alone are insufficient, especially if they’re based on guesswork instead of real user input.

Yet, I still create personas in my product practice today.

The difference? They’re built off of specific insights from actual users we’ve interviewed, not just market research or our own assumptions.

By grounding personas in real conversations, we turn them into living representations of actual customers. We also work to keep these personas fluid, revisiting them as our user base grows or changes.

Personas Put a Single Face to Many Users

One major drawback of classic personas is that they put a single face on a large, diverse group of people.

As noted by the Nielsen Norman Group in their article on personas and archetypes:

“That single representation of many people (with a huge diversity in backgrounds, physical abilities, cognition, and lived experiences) is inherently going to be reductive. Even thoughtfully chosen, diverse avatars won’t represent everyone. When we pick the faces of our personas, we are quite literally saying that these are our users – anyone who isn’t represented by those faces is therefore being implicitly excluded (unintentionally perhaps, but still excluded).”

Even alternative approaches like archetypes—where the persona has no face at all—may end up reinforcing biases if they don’t actively incorporate fresh user insights.

If we’re not careful, we risk designing for an imaginary audience and leaving out the diverse voices that make up our real user base.

Why Do Some Personas Fail to Deliver?

In the Nielsen Norman Group’s article, Why Personas Fail, they point out that personas often flop because teams treat them as one-and-done artifacts. They get created, referenced a few times, and then forgotten. Without continuous updates from direct user feedback, personas become obsolete, failing to reflect evolving markets, new product directions, and changing user behaviors.

My Journey: From ‘Personas for All’ to ‘Personas That Evolve

In my current product-management role, it quickly became clear that static, one-size-fits-all personas wouldn’t be enough. So, instead of relying on hypothetical user profiles, I immediately kicked off user interviews to gather authentic insights. Here’s what happened next:

Initial Conversations

• We asked open-ended questions: “What’s the most frustrating part of your current process?”

• This surfaced hidden pain points, many of which contradicted our initial assumptions.

Concept Validation

• We shared early sketches and wireframes with real users, gathering unfiltered feedback.

• Some users pinpointed entire features they’d never use, sparing us from investing in the wrong areas.

Live Demos & Critiques

• We showcased a working prototype in small, live forums.

• Receiving real-time criticism was tough but invaluable, especially because it highlighted issues no persona could have predicted.

Through these conversations, we molded personas that reflected real users, with genuine names and details gleaned from our interviews.

They became living documents—updated each time we had new conversations and learned something different.

The Hidden Cost of Fake Users

Think of the last time a product you used felt off, not broken, but slightly out of sync with how you think and behave. Maybe an app forced you into a rigid workflow that didn’t match your process.

Oor new feature felt like it solved a problem that no one had.

This happens when products are designed for personas instead of people. Personas oversimplify complex behaviors, stripping away the nuance that makes human decision-making so unpredictable and interesting.

• They reinforce assumptions. Once a persona is created, teams start optimizing for it, often ignoring data that contradicts it.

• They create a false sense of security. If a persona seems well-researched, it feels like user validation, even if no real users were involved.

• They can’t evolve. Real users change their habits and expectations constantly. A persona, once created, stays frozen in time.

Real People, Real Feedback, Real Products

If personas aren’t the answer, what is?

Simple: talk to your users—constantly, deeply, and with curiosity.

The best product managers don’t rely on hypothetical users; they build relationships with real ones.

If your goal is to build products people need (and will pay for), consider these techniques to ground your personas and product decisions in tangible evidence:

User Interviews (that matter)

Most PMs conduct user interviews, but not all of them do it well. The key? Stop leading the conversation toward the answers you expect. Instead of asking, "Would you use this feature?" ask, "How do you currently solve this problem?"That’s where the gold is.

Social Media & Community Listening

Your users are already telling you what they need—you just need to listen. Reddit discussions, LinkedIn posts, customer Slack groups—these are live, unfiltered insights into what people think about your product (or your competitors').

Behavioral Data over Demographics

Demographics can tell you who your users are, but they won’t tell you what they do. Instead of segmenting by age or job title, look at behavioral patterns. Who keeps abandoning your onboarding process? Who uses the same workaround every day? That’s where you’ll find your real personas.

Co-Creation with Users

What is the best way to make sure you're solving the right problems? Bring users into the process early. Whether it’s beta programs, user councils, or live feedback sessions, involving real people before you build saves time, money, and frustration.

The Real Reason This Works

Let’s be honest—most teams think they’re already listening to users.

But if you’re making major product decisions without recent, firsthand conversations with real people, you’re not listening enough.

When you keep users in the loop:

• You discover pain points you didn’t even know existed.

• You validate ideas before investing months into building the wrong thing.

• You create products that feel natural because they were shaped by real behavior, not assumptions.

Build for Names, Not Labels

Instead of designing for “Enterprise Peter” or “Freelancer Anna,” imagine designing for an actual person you spoke to last week. Someone with a name, a job, and real frustrations that your product can solve.

At the end of the day, great product management isn’t about guessing—it’s about getting close enough to your users that you don’t have to.

So here’s your challenge: This week, talk to one real user. Just one. And see what you learn that no persona could have told you.

Key Takeaways

1. Personas are starting points, not endpoints: use them to kickstart discussions but continuously update them with actual user data.

2. Real conversations beat assumptions: ongoing interviews, open feedback loops, and honest critiques will surface more truth than any static persona outline.

3. One face can’t represent everyone: even carefully considered personas or archetypes risk excluding those who don’t fit the mold. Always challenge your assumptions.

4. Tie personas to actual people: ground persona details in real quotes, real pain points, and real behaviors from your user interviews.

5. Adapt to change: personas (like products) must evolve. Your market, user base, and technology will shift—your understanding should shift with them.

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If any part of this resonated with you, I'd love to hear your thoughts! Share your reflections in the comments below or drop me a DM—I always enjoy connecting with people who are curious, thoughtful, and navigating their journeys :))

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