Agent skill
customer-persona
Research-backed customer persona creation with market data and avatar generation. Covers demographics, psychographics, jobs-to-be-done, journey mapping, and anti-personas. Use for: marketing strategy, product development, UX research, sales enablement, content strategy. Triggers: customer persona, buyer persona, user persona, target audience, ideal customer, customer profile, audience research, user research, icp, ideal customer profile, target market, customer avatar, audience persona
Install this agent skill to your Project
npx add-skill https://github.com/inference-sh/skills/tree/main/guides/product/customer-persona
SKILL.md
Customer Persona
Create data-backed customer personas with research and visuals via inference.sh CLI.
Quick Start
Requires inference.sh CLI (
infsh). Install instructions
infsh login
# Research your target market
infsh app run tavily/search-assistant --input '{
"query": "SaaS product manager demographics pain points 2024 survey"
}'
# Generate a persona avatar
infsh app run falai/flux-dev-lora --input '{
"prompt": "professional headshot photograph of a 35-year-old woman, product manager, friendly confident expression, modern office background, natural lighting, business casual attire, realistic portrait",
"width": 1024,
"height": 1024
}'
Persona Template
┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ [Avatar Photo] │
│ │
│ SARAH CHEN, 34 │
│ Product Manager at a Series B SaaS startup │
│ │
│ "I spend more time making reports than making │
│ decisions." │
│ │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ DEMOGRAPHICS │ PSYCHOGRAPHICS │
│ Age: 30-38 │ Values: efficiency, data │
│ Income: $120-160K │ Personality: analytical, │
│ Education: BS/MBA │ organized, collaborative │
│ Location: Urban US │ Interests: productivity, │
│ Role: Product/PM │ leadership, AI tools │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ GOALS │ PAIN POINTS │
│ • Ship features │ • Too many meetings │
│ faster │ • Manual reporting (15 │
│ • Data-driven │ hrs/week) │
│ decisions │ • Stakeholder alignment │
│ • Team alignment │ is slow │
│ • Career growth to │ • Tool sprawl (8+ apps) │
│ Director │ • No single source of │
│ │ truth │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ CHANNELS │ BUYING TRIGGERS │
│ • LinkedIn (daily) │ • Peer recommendation │
│ • Product Hunt │ • Free trial experience │
│ • Podcasts (commute) │ • Integration with Jira │
│ • Lenny's Newsletter │ • Team plan pricing │
│ • Twitter/X │ • ROI calculator │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Building a Persona Step-by-Step
Step 1: Research
Start with data, not assumptions.
# Market demographics
infsh app run tavily/search-assistant --input '{
"query": "product manager salary demographics 2024 survey report"
}'
# Pain points and challenges
infsh app run exa/search --input '{
"query": "biggest challenges facing product managers SaaS companies"
}'
# Tool usage patterns
infsh app run tavily/search-assistant --input '{
"query": "most popular tools product managers use 2024 survey"
}'
# Content consumption habits
infsh app run exa/answer --input '{
"question": "Where do product managers get their industry news and professional development?"
}'
Step 2: Demographics
Use ranges, not exact values. Personas represent a segment, not one person.
| Field | Format | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Age range | X-Y | 30-38 |
| Income range | $X-$Y | $120,000-$160,000 |
| Education | Common degrees | BS Computer Science, MBA |
| Location | Region/type | Urban US, major tech hubs |
| Job title | Role level | Senior PM, Product Lead |
| Company size | Range | 50-500 employees |
| Industry | Sector | B2B SaaS |
Step 3: Psychographics
What they think, value, and believe.
| Category | Questions to Answer |
|---|---|
| Values | What matters most to them professionally? |
| Attitudes | How do they feel about their industry's direction? |
| Motivations | What drives them at work? |
| Personality | Analytical vs intuitive? Leader vs collaborator? |
| Interests | What do they read/watch/listen to professionally? |
| Lifestyle | Work-life balance preference? Remote/hybrid/office? |
Step 4: Goals
What they're trying to achieve (both professional and personal).
Professional:
- Ship features faster with fewer meetings
- Make data-driven decisions (not gut feelings)
- Get promoted to Director of Product within 2 years
- Build a more autonomous product team
Personal:
- Leave work by 6pm more often
- Be seen as a strategic leader, not a ticket manager
- Stay current with industry trends without information overload
Step 5: Pain Points
Quantify whenever possible. Vague pain = vague persona.
❌ "Has trouble with reporting"
✅ "Spends 15 hours per week creating manual reports for 4 different stakeholders"
❌ "Too many tools"
✅ "Uses 8 different tools daily (Jira, Slack, Notion, Figma, Analytics, Sheets, Docs, Email) with no unified view"
❌ "Meetings are a problem"
✅ "Averages 6 hours of meetings per day, leaving only 2 hours for deep work"
Step 6: Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD)
Three types of jobs:
| Job Type | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Functional | The task they need to accomplish | "Prioritize the product backlog based on customer impact data" |
| Emotional | How they want to feel | "Feel confident presenting to the exec team" |
| Social | How they want to be perceived | "Be seen as the person who makes data-driven decisions" |
Step 7: Buying Process
| Stage | Behavior |
|---|---|
| Awareness | Reads blog posts, sees peer recommendations on LinkedIn |
| Consideration | Compares 3-4 tools, reads G2/Capterra reviews, asks in Slack communities |
| Decision | Requests demo, needs IT/security approval, evaluates team pricing |
| Influencers | Engineering lead, VP of Product, CFO (for budget) |
| Objections | "Will my team actually adopt it?", "Does it integrate with Jira?" |
| Trigger event | New quarter with aggressive goals, new VP demanding better reporting |
Step 8: Generate Avatar
# Match demographics: age, gender, ethnicity, professional context
infsh app run falai/flux-dev-lora --input '{
"prompt": "professional headshot photograph of a 34-year-old Asian American woman, product manager, warm confident smile, modern tech office background, natural lighting, wearing smart casual blouse, realistic portrait photography, sharp focus",
"width": 1024,
"height": 1024
}'
Avatar tips:
- Match the age range, ethnicity representation, and professional context
- Use "professional headshot photograph" for realistic results
- Friendly, approachable expression (not stock-photo-stiff)
- Background suggests their work environment
- Business casual or industry-appropriate attire
The Anti-Persona
Equally important: who is NOT your customer.
ANTI-PERSONA: "Enterprise Earl"
- CTO at a 5,000+ person enterprise
- Needs SOC 2, HIPAA, on-premise deployment
- 18-month procurement cycles
- Wants white-glove onboarding and dedicated CSM
- WHY NOT: Our product is self-serve SaaS for SMB/mid-market.
Enterprise needs would require 2+ years of product investment.
Anti-personas prevent wasted effort on customers you can't serve.
Multiple Personas
Most products have 2-4 personas. More than 4 = too many to serve well.
| Priority | Persona | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Primary | The main user and buyer | Who you optimize for |
| Secondary | Influences the buying decision | Who you need to convince |
| Tertiary | Uses the product occasionally | Who you support, not target |
Validation
Personas based on assumptions are fiction. Validate with:
| Method | What You Learn |
|---|---|
| Customer interviews (5-10) | Real language, real pain points |
| Support ticket analysis | Actual problems, not assumed ones |
| Analytics data | Actual behavior, not reported behavior |
| Survey (50+ responses) | Quantified patterns across segments |
| Sales call recordings | Objections, buying triggers, language |
Common Mistakes
| Mistake | Problem | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Based on assumptions | Fiction, not research | Start with data |
| Too many personas (6+) | Can't serve everyone well | Max 3-4 |
| Vague pain points | Not actionable | Quantify everything |
| Demographics only | Misses motivations and behavior | Add psychographics, JTBD |
| Never updated | Becomes outdated | Review quarterly |
| No anti-persona | Wasted effort on wrong customers | Define who you're NOT for |
| Single persona for all | Different users have different needs | Primary/secondary/tertiary |
Related Skills
npx skills add inference-sh/skills@web-search
npx skills add inference-sh/skills@ai-image-generation
npx skills add inference-sh/skills@prompt-engineering
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