Persona Led Growth
Originally published on Paragraph.
Traditional Growth is Dead
The old playbook for growth is dead.
If you want to win today, you need to use Persona Led Growth: amplifying the voices of actual builders and aspiring for real-time updates.
We already see folks like Jesse (Coinbase), Dan (Farcaster), Steven (Arbitrum), and Binji (Optimism) embracing this.
Let’s dive in.
Persona Led Growth
Persona Led Growth is a novel growth tactic akin to Product Led Growth.
It’s pretty simple: we all value what builders say about their products more than what companies say.
The more engagement we see from the core team, the more likely we connect with the product and share it.
Why Does It Work
As humans, we relate the most to other humans and human drama – this is what hooks us.
Persona Led Growth taps into our primal urge as humans to pay attention to very human words and situations.
There’s a reason it’s easier for us to follow personal accounts vs. brand accounts.
How Does It Work
You and your core team’s passion, vision, and conviction can’t be simulated by others.
Instead of being corporate, using Persona Led Growth lets you create the gravity of attention for your product.
The best spokespeople for your product are the people who work on it every day.
Build Your Personal Brand
If you’re a founder, you need to take Persona Led Growth as seriously as you take your product.
Try dedicating >10% of your time/energy to creating content and building out your social presence.
Think of this as part of your job – your story and journey are part of the product.
Build in Public
Share your experiences as a founder:
- Why you want to build your product
- What are you building
- Stuff behind the scenes
- The ups and downs
- What you’re learning
- Product updates
- Fun memes
Persona Led Growth can help keep it real and make your product more personable.
Encourage Your Team to Be Active
If you have subject matter experts on your team, you can also leverage them for Persona Led Growth.
Encourage them to share what they know, empower them to build a social presence, and support them to represent the brand.
This is one of the best things startups can do to grow.
Tangible Benefits
Successful Persona Led Growth leads to sales, user acquisition, fundraising, and hiring.
Persona Led Growth helps with lead generation through building in public and creating social proof.
It also helps with recruiting A players down the line who want to work with A players.
Summary
Summary:
- People want to hear from people, not companies
- Persona Led Growth doesn’t work without the core team’s involvement
- Be personable by sharing stories and insights
- Persona Led Growth rivals traditional growth tactics
- Study Coinbase, Farcaster, Arbitrum, and Optimism
- Have fun and enjoy :)
Growth in the Modern World
If your growth tactics today don’t include Persona Led Growth...
Then you’re just playing an old game, your product won’t have any emotional allure or connection to users.
By embracing personality and authenticity via Persona Led Growth, your product will gain a massive edge to thrive in the modern world.
