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When to Use This

You need to pick a persona (or a set of personas) for responses, focus groups, or Mave research. Choosing the right persona drastically improves relevance: a Gen Z Consumer and a B2B Decision Maker will give very different answers to the same question. This cookbook gives you:
  • A use-case → persona matrix for common scenarios
  • Code to list, filter, and select personas programmatically
  • Guidance on single vs multi-persona strategies
  • When to use pre-built vs custom personas

Persona Categories (Quick Reference)


Use-Case → Persona Matrix

Use this table to pick personas for your scenario. “Primary” = best first choice; “Alternates” = good for comparison or multi-persona runs.

Programmatic Persona Discovery

Fetch all personas and filter by category, name, or custom logic. Use this when building dynamic UIs or automating persona selection.

Single Persona: Responses

For a single chat, pick one persona that matches your target audience. Use the matrix above, or filter by category.

Multi-Persona: Focus Groups

For focus groups, use 3–6 diverse personas so you get segment-level variation. Mix generational + professional or lifestyle depending on your product.

When to Create a Custom Persona

Use pre-built personas when your target fits a common segment (Gen Z, B2B, etc.). Create a custom persona when:
  • Your audience is niche (e.g. “Sustainable Fashion Buyer”, “SMB Operations Manager”).
  • You need specific psychographics (goals, pains, buying stage) not in pre-built personas.
  • You’re running repeated research and want a reusable, tailored profile.
Custom personas cost 300 credits to create but are then free to use. See Personas for NORTH_STAR, INTERMEDIATE, and ADVANCED pipelines.

Tips and Pitfalls

Listing personas is free but adds latency. Fetch once at app start and cache by name or category. Refresh periodically (e.g. daily) if you create new custom personas.
For “How would you describe X?”, use a consumer persona. For “What features matter most for enterprise adoption?”, use B2B or Expert personas.
4–6 personas is usually enough for segment diversity. More personas increase cost and can dilute clear patterns.
Use persona for audience perspective; use system prompt for task (e.g. “You are a concise reviewer. Keep answers under 50 words.”).

See Also

Personas

Pre-built categories, custom creation pipelines, API reference

Quickstart: Chat

First response with a persona

Quickstart: Focus Groups

Multi-persona focus group setup

API Reference

List and filter personas