Understanding AI Personas: The Next Big Thing in Venture Building
Despite the many voices singing the praises of AI, doubts can linger.
Christopher Young , Operating Partner here at Mach49, shares in his latest piece that Generative AI often just aims to appease, resulting in too much agreement. But he also suggests ways to spark a more grounded, critical dialogue with AI, which is crucial for venture building.
Don't miss his thoughtful perspective - your future AI project might just depend on it.
The time to start is now. Enjoy.
By Elke Boogert, Mach49 Managing Editor
Understanding AI Personas: The Next Big Thing in Venture Building
By Christopher Young , Operating Partner at Mach49
Can we use AI Personas in Venture Building even when Generative AI aims to please?
More and more venture builders are turning to AI to speed up the process of finding promising new business ideas. Specifically, many builders use AI personas - artificially intelligent customer profiles - to mimic, but not completely replace, the customer discovery process. This method delivers quick, affordable insights that can confirm or dismiss potential ventures faster than ever before.
AI personas offer a quick, more economical way to understand customer needs, desires, and objections. Traditionally, this understanding came from extensive field research with real potential customers. While this can't be replaced for final confirmation, these resource-heavy methods make early customer discovery too expensive for most venture builders.
Builders create detailed fictional bios representing customer segments, then feed conversational prompts to the personas to mimic interviews. The AI produces surprisingly realistic dialogue, allowing builders to gather feedback and spot potential issues without ever leaving their desks.
For example, a builder looking into an on-demand grocery delivery service might create a persona for a working mom named Sarah. After defining her demographic profile, location, shopping preferences, and issues, the builder could "interview" Sarah by prompting conversations about her grocery shopping habits. This quickly produces feedback that helps determine if the potential business solves a real consumer need.
While quick and convenient, AI has its limitations.
To balance this, builders experiment with multi-agent simulations, creating entire focus groups of personas with differing views. This technique sparks more realistic – and useful – debate and criticism.? Intentionally encouraging the most opinionated personas to speak up through careful prompting is key, as it prevents AI from simply going around to each stakeholder and fosters a more dynamic and varied dialogue.
For instance, a builder could simulate a focus group with several shopper personas and multiple store manager personas. Here’s what that would look like.
Prompt: "As consumers, what are your thoughts on our selection of goods? And as store managers, how would you react to these observations?"
Consumer 1: "The selection of organic goods is rather limited. I'd appreciate more variety."
Store Manager 1: "Thank you for your feedback. We're constantly trying to expand our organic range..."
Consumer 4: "I'd like to add to that. Even in the non-organic range, there's room for more diversity. For example, it's hard to find gluten-free options."
Store Manager 2: "That's a useful suggestion. We'll certainly look into expanding our gluten-free range."
Consumer 1: "And what about vegan options? That's another area where selection seems limited."
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Consumer 2: "I've noticed the lack of variety in the bakery section. More types of bread and pastries would be nice."
Consumer 3: "I agree. And the snack aisle could use some more international brands."
Store Manager 1: "We appreciate these suggestions. Expanding our bakery range and including more international brands in our snack aisle is something we can definitely explore."
Consumer 5: "Don't forget about the drinks section. I'd love to see a wider variety of craft beers and wines."
Store Manager 2: "We hear you. Diversifying our drink options, including craft beers and wines, is on our agenda."
Consumer 1: "It sounds like you're open to improving the selection. That's encouraging."
While it's still early days, AI-assisted customer discovery is a rising trend in venture building. Personas and multi-agent focus groups provide a fast first look at potential ventures, helping builders quickly put new ideas to the test with digitally-simulated target customers.?
I want to be very clear: this doesn't replace traditional in-person validation. But rather speeds up and enhances the customer understanding process. As the technology matures, AI promises to become an essential tool for bringing new ventures to market faster.
CHRISTOPHER YOUNG'S contagious entrepreneurial spirit inspires and motivates teams as he lends expertise developed through a decade of experience both launching and growing ventures in which tech is a key player.?Chris is well-versed in all the ins and outs of startups, having started his career by founding Async Interview, a SaaS technology that reduced employers’ time-to-hire through video interviewing and interview scheduling systems. Chris managed every facet of the business, from conducting customer interviews to designing and building the technology, developing the go-to-market strategy, and overseeing marketing and sales. Chris has an MBA and a BS in finance and entrepreneurship from Drexel University, where he occasionally returns to teach courses in entrepreneurship, technology, and innovation. In a perfect balance with his fast-paced work life, Chris leads a quiet, fulfilling personal life with his wife on a hobby farm near a river town. There, you can find him enjoying long bike rides, playing soccer, making maple syrup, or watching English Premier League games.?He also continually explores new technologies and software applications, having most recently co-designed a game with AI.
Opportunities Disguised as Big Hairy Problems
Our weekly list of must-read media, curated by Forbes' Rich Karlgaard , on what counts as an AI win, robot shapes and CIO profiles . In short, opportunities disguised as big hairy problems.
Big banks are in a race to get AI right / By Ryan Heath / Axios / April 12
Reason to read: The huge banking industry is a crucial testbed for transforming the AI industry's promises into real-world results, states the article. Lessons of success and failure will accumulate fast. Get ready to learn from them. Questions to ask: Are you learning from the AI successes and mistakes of others? Are you educating and empowering your employee base to make smart choices on AI use and governance?
How To Be The CIO That Every Company Wants / By The Editors / CIO.com / April 8
Reason to read: The more things change – and AI is certainly changing business – the more classic CIO competencies matter. Knowledge of the business. Financial acumen. Agility. Collaboration. Empathy and more. Lesson: Yes, AI requires proper attention, but not at the exclusion of other skills. Questions to ask: When your CIO struggles, your business struggles. Is your CIO set up for success? How would you grade their performance by the criteria listed in this article?
When a Humanoid Isn't The Best Robot for The Job / By Jennifer K. / Axios / April 10
Reason to read: Robotics leader Boston Dynamics is hedging its bets on robot shapes. Along with its humanoid robot, Atlas, the company is also investing in robotic dogs and arms-on-wheels.?The human form is not the right form factor for logistics, says Marc Theermann, Chief Strategy Officer at Boston Dynamics. Questions to ask: What is your company’s robotics strategy? Does your strategy include thought about matching robotic forms factor to functions?