Excitement-Signal Persona Discovery
Ship a broad tool, then let the segment with the most emotive joy tell you who to focus on
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 85%
Canva didn't pre-pick its launch persona. It built a general tool and, through user testing, watched which segment reacted with the most intense, emotive excitement — social media managers — then leaned into that group as the first target market. The signal to look for isn't polite approval but sheer joy and emotive language, driven by a segment whose unmet need your product suddenly solves.
Origin
Cameron Adams recounts identifying Canva's first market in the final six months before launch: 'we didn't quite know who our audience was going to be... in that last six months of user testing and refining is when we really identified that first target market.'
Core principles
- 01You don't have to know your persona up front — let excitement in testing reveal it
- 02The signal is emotive language and sheer joy, not more people saying it's 'useful'
- 03Focus on the segment whose acute unmet need your product uniquely relieves
- 04Ship the capability that segment needs now, and add the rest of your vision later
- 05Onboarding tailored to that segment's deeper goal is what converts excitement into activation
How to run it
- 1
Launch a broad, capable tool
Ship a simple-but-powerful product usable by many (Canva shipped square/landscape/portrait and blog graphics), without over-narrowing to one audience first.
- 2
Run heavy user testing and watch reactions
Continuously user-test and observe the emotional intensity of different segments' responses, not just feature feedback.
Pro tip Cheap online testing (usertesting.com) let Canva get results in half an hour instead of formal labs.
- 3
Find the segment with the most emotive joy
Identify the group whose reaction is an order of magnitude more excited — sheer joy and emotive language — signalling a deeply unmet need.
Pro tip Look for language like 'I didn't know I could do that,' not lukewarm 'this is useful.'
Watch out Don't mistake mild usefulness for a target-market signal; the tell is emotional intensity.
- 4
Lean into that first market
Commit to that segment (social media managers, who had a massive unserved content need) and tailor onboarding to their deeper goal and impact.
- 5
Add the rest of the vision later
Layer on the broader product (presentations, t-shirts, etc.) after establishing traction with the first market, consistent with your long-term vision.
In the wild
In the last six months of user testing, social media managers reacted with incredibly emotive language and sheer joy because Canva unlocked a massive content need they couldn't otherwise service. Canva hadn't set out to target them — it set out to democratize design broadly.
→ Canva identified and leaned into social media managers as its first target market and tailored onboarding to their goal, unlocking activation and early growth.
Common mistakes
Forcing a persona choice before the market speaks
Canva's persona emerged from observed excitement, not an upfront guess; picking too early can miss the segment that actually lights up.
Reading usefulness as fit
Many segments found Canva useful; only the emotive, joyful reaction marked the right first market to focus on.
Is it for you?
Best for
Founders of a broadly useful product who need to pick a focused first market from real user reactions
Not ideal for
Products built for a single obvious buyer, or teams that can't run enough user testing to detect differential excitement
From the transcript
“we didn't quite know who our audience was going to be we knew it was a tool that any anyone could use but in that…”
“it was just incredibly emotive language like um sheer Joy particularly coming into the product”
“it resonated the most with social media managers because they had this massive content need that they couldn't really service”
“we shipped a thing that could make Square landscape and portrait graphics and blog post graphics and that got a particular segment of society excited…”
From the episode
Inside Canva: Coaches not managers, giving away your Legos, and running profitably
Cameron Adams (co-founder and CPO)