Create proto-personas from market signals and research

Create assumption-based persona hypothesis

Early-stage products needing quick user hypothesis to align teams before months of research.

• · Existing research (if any)
• · Market data
• · Stakeholder insights

• · Proto-persona document (name, bio, quotes, pains, gains)

Team alignment needed on target user

• · Treating proto as validated fact
• · Pure demographic data
• · Feature-centric instead of behavior

• · Explicitly marks assumptions
• · Evolves as learning happens
• · Guides research, not replaces it