If there’s one thing you’ve got to nail to give your startup or business the best chance at success, it’s your personas. Yes, like everything else in marketing and product development, finding your perfect audience involves trial and error. But starting on the right foot (even if you’re not 100% sure yet) can set you miles ahead.
Now, you might be thinking, “That all sounds great, but isn’t deep persona research crazy expensive? Don’t I need big-budget tools, or advanced social listening?”
Not exactly. Sure, tools help, but you don’t need a massive budget in any way. Plenty of startup founders have nailed their personas without it – and today’s article is all about what they did when money was short.
Go Guerrilla (Yes, That Means Talking to Strangers)
Talking to people in real life isn’t most founders’ idea of a good time. Especially if you’re used to running your entire research process from a laptop. But sometimes the best feedback comes from casual conversations.
That’s exactly what Erin Siemek did when she needed a low-cost way to understand her target audience.
“When I needed budget-friendly user insights for a startup, I discovered a simple but effective method: visiting local cafes and coworking spaces during off-hours. I approached people who fit my target demographic, offered to buy them a coffee or snack in exchange for 15 minutes of their time, and asked them questions about their habits, preferences, and struggles related to my product.”
One freelancer opened up about how hard it was to juggle client expectations. That one conversation directly shaped how Erin adjusted her product’s features. She kept the setting casual, which made people more honest. And it didn’t cost more than a couple of cappuccinos.
Go Live and Let Your Persona Talk Back
Q&A sessions are everywhere now. That’s because the format works.
If you already have a following, even a small one, you’ve got a front-row seat to your ideal customer’s thoughts. Answering their questions live does two things at once: it helps them, and it helps you refine your messaging by listening to what they care about most.
Samantha Odo, who works with real estate buyers across multiple markets, used Instagram and TikTok live sessions to collect unscripted feedback without spending a dollar.
“In one session, over 200 people participated, and 75% of them confirmed they were actively looking at pre-construction condos. That instantly told me what stage they were in and what kind of content would move them closer to a decision.”
Samantha then built a private WhatsApp group for serious buyers, using screening questions to keep the audience relevant. Over time, that group’s conversations shaped her listings strategy and helped her increase engagement by 40%.
Talk to Your Personas In Their Unfiltered Hangouts (AKA, Online Communities)
There’s no shortage of insight if you know where to look. That’s what makes online communities so powerful for persona research. You don’t need a formal interview panel or paid focus groups for that!
Georgi Petrov figured that out early on. Instead of dropping money on structured research panels, he used Reddit, Facebook groups, and other niche forums to connect with potential users directly:
“Instead of paying for expensive focus groups, I engaged directly with target audiences in Facebook Groups, Reddit threads, and LinkedIn communities related to my industry. By posting open-ended questions, running quick polls, and DMing engaged users for short interviews, I gathered valuable insights without spending a dime.”
If you want to take it a step further, do what Vukasin Ilic does. He uses Reddit like a matchmaking tool to set up one-on-one “coffee chats” with potential users, offering a small gift card in exchange for a 20-minute Zoom call. It’s casual, it’s low-pressure, and it works.
“My method is simple: I post in targeted subreddits offering $10-15 Amazon gift cards for 20-minute Zoom conversations about my product concept.
With my fitness app startup, I connected with 25 dedicated fitness enthusiasts through r/fitness and r/weightlossadvice for about $300 total.
One participant pointed out a critical flaw in our progress tracking feature that we completely overlooked.
After fixing this and two other user-identified issues, our early adoption exceeded expectations by roughly a third.”
These calls create a genuine dialogue that traditional focus groups can’t match, due to their casual nature.
The casual nature of these calls creates genuine dialogue, which is uncommon in traditional focus groups, in their own words.
When Zoom Isn’t the Move, Try This Instead
Anonymity is part of what makes places like Reddit great…but it also means not everyone’s going to be up for a one-on-one chat.
You might have already DM’d someone who seemed like the perfect fit for a quick user interview. They were active and seemed open to chatting… until you mentioned hopping on Zoom. Then…radio silence.
It’s not personal. There’s pressure involved. Saying yes means trusting a stranger and sometimes feeling weird about getting paid after the fact. Some Redditors just won’t bite. And that’s okay.
The good news is that you don’t have to rely on live calls to do great persona research. If you love the platform but aren’t ready to book interviews (or your audience just isn’t into it), GummySearch gives you a smarter way to go deep without ever needing to schedule anything.
You still get the unfiltered thoughts and real pain points. You just skip the part where you awkwardly wait in an online meeting room.
How to Make Persona Research as Useful as Interviews
For this example, I’m stepping into the shoes of a founder building a cellphone for kids. I’m designing a legit-looking smartphone specifically for safety-conscious parents.
If you’ve seen the Gabb phone or Pinwheel, you already know what I’m going for. It’s got the games, the camera, but no Instagram, Snapchat, or TikTok.
Now, I know my target audience here is parents. But what I need to understand is what kind of parents. Do I need to understand the ones who are fielding daily “but everyone else has a phone” pressure from their kids? Or the ones who want their eight-year-old to be able to check in after school, but don’t want a flood of apps and messages?
I’m going to use Reddit conversations to figure all of that out. Here’s how I’d go about it, step by step.
Building an Audience
I want to hear from as many types of parents as I can. A big enough base to catch different experiences and priorities, so my early research reflects the real-world messiness of modern parenting.
So, I head into GummySearch to build an audience.
I could’ve created one from scratch, but first I took a shortcut and checked the curated audiences. And bingo: there’s already a prebuilt “Parents” audience ready to go. It’s made up of nine subreddits like r/parenting, r/daddit, r/newparents, r/raisingkids, and more. Altogether, that’s millions of active members and a ton of context to start with.
I already had a hunch about my main competitors: Pinwheel and Gabb. But what I didn’t expect was how helpful the Products tab would be. Once I filtered by the “cell phone” product category, I saw that many parents are still handing down Apple and Samsung devices as their kid’s first phone. Not because they love the idea, but because of the built-in parental controls.
Now I’m starting to get somewhere. I’m seeing what they’re using right now, what they’ve settled for, and maybe what they wish existed instead.
Going Deeper with Keyword Search: What Parents Are Really Thinking
To create a solid persona, I need to know: What’s going on in their heads when they finally decide to give their kid a phone?
I mean the off-the-cuff stuff people say when they’re typing fast or venting to another parent during a coffee break.
So I went to the Keyword Search bar on my audience dashboard. It’s right up top, super easy to find. I typed in “cellphone” and right away, I started seeing posts with titles like “First Cellphone” and “Phones for Tweens.”
In one, a parent wrote: “Good morning, my 10-year-old is getting his first phone. I gave in to the idea as he’s the only kid in his class to not have one.”
That’s already packed with emotion. Initially, this is a fear of their kid being left out and being the “boring parent”. It’s about belonging and confidence.
But if I scroll down, the same post starts asking about parental controls and how to monitor screen time. Suddenly, this fear also becomes about protection and safety.
The parent wants to say yes, but a cautious, calculated yes.
Of course, even the most detailed post won’t say everything. One parent might write a five-paragraph breakdown of why they chose a dumb phone over an iPhone, but if you want your research to actually hold weight, you’re still going to need more than one data point.
That’s where you should start looking for Patterns.
Looking for Patterns Without Getting Buried in Tabs
The more parents echo the same concerns, the clearer your persona becomes.
Now, I can read every single post with “cellphone” in it. Honestly, if you’ve got the time, I still recommend setting aside an hour or two a week to do some old-school reading and highlighting.
But we’re founders. Time isn’t always on our side.
So instead, I stayed right inside Keyword Search and clicked over to the Patterns ✨ tab, sitting just to the right of “Results.”
GummySearch scans Reddit posts for me and pulls out the recurring themes. In this case, I saved myself about 2.5 hours and instantly saw the most repeated ideas across every conversation mentioning cellphones.
The Patterns ✨ tab tallies how many posts bring up the same idea. For example, it gave me six clear patterns, each with recurring topics. By far, the most recurring topic is: Is my kid too young for a phone?
That “age appropriateness” concern kept coming up again and again. Right behind that, parents were comparing parental controls, asking which devices are best for monitoring usage, limiting screen time, and keeping out apps like TikTok or Snapchat.
This already tells me a lot, even if I had no idea where to start. These are the core pain points my persona cares about – age, safety, and making the right call.
If I’m short on time, analyzing just nine posts is honestly a solid starting point. The more the better, but even a handful of Reddit submissions will tell me a ton if I (intentionally) read between the lines.
Take this one post from a parent with a 9-year-old who’s asking for a phone because their best friend got one for Christmas.
That sounds a lot like another post from a parent of a 10-year-old who’s also worried about their kid being the only one without a phone in class. The common threads are starting to show up.
Now let’s layer in some context. Not every post says “I’m a mom,” but plenty do. So if that were true, I could start building out a persona: A cautious but open-minded mom of a 10-to-12-year-old, someone who’s juggling the pressure to fit in with genuine concerns about screen time, safety, and developmental health.
She doesn’t want to hand over an iPhone, but she doesn’t want her kid to feel embarrassed with a brick either.
Want to Go Even Deeper? Time to Ask.
Say you’re like me and you want to get just a little more validation before moving forward. This is a job for GummySearch’s AI-driven Ask ✨ tab.
Inside Keyword Search, I see the Ask feature just beside Patterns ✨. I just type in exactly what I want to know, and GummySearch will mine those Reddit posts for a context-packed answer.
For example, I asked, “What are parents’ biggest issues when it comes to cellphones? What types of phones are they likely to choose?”
GummySearch came back with a summary that hit all the right points: exposure to inappropriate content, the influence of social media, and how recommendation algorithms might push harmful videos. It even pointed out that some parents are choosing kid-safe smartwatches instead of phones.
If one of those points catches my attention, I don’t have to guess where it came from. GummySearch drops a link right after each insight that takes me directly to the Reddit thread that sparked it. Not just the post, but the comments too, so I can explore what other parents said in that conversation and keep building out my picture.
By the way, as long as these subreddits stay active, parents will keep bringing up their concerns and tips. I want to stay in the loop. So I just track a keyword like “cellphones” (or anything else I’m curious about) by clicking on the 🔔 icon and then “Track Keyword”. GummySearch will ping me whenever something new pops up, so I don’t have to constantly babysit my research.
A Real Persona With Just a Bit of Budget (and a Lot of Reddit)
Once you start growing, you’ll want to keep refining that persona. Keep an eye on your tracked keywords in the Conversations 💬 tab in GummySearch. You could also compare your new persona to the people who become your customers. Maybe you’ll run surveys or have 1:1 interviews later on.
But right now, this is how you get a strong head start without needing a giant audience or a fancy research budget.
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