How Persona Went From Single-Digit Replies to 111 Sales Conversations

At a glance

Persona runs AI-moderated customer interviews, replacing six-week agency studies with a few days of real conversations. Their problem was not the product. It was that nobody could tell, from a list, who had a research question worth answering this week.

Industry: Consumer and product research
Stage: Seed, founder-led, selling to heads of insights, growth and product
Engagement: 2026
What we built: Sending infrastructure, 27 campaigns, a study topic drafted for every brand, and a repeatable approach to event outreach
Impact: 111 sales conversations in 20 weeks

The problem01

Their buyers were not cold. They were hidden.

The hard part was never the pitch - it was earning the chance to make it, at scale. Persona already had customers including WPP, Miro, Exponent, Otter, Jupiter and Biossance. To reach more, the founders sent hundreds of cold emails and received just a few replies. Their lists relied on industry, headcount and funding stage. None of that says whether a research question is sitting on someone's desk this week.

The buyers existed - brands betting their next product line on guesswork because nobody had talked to a customer in months. That is exactly the problem Persona solves, and no database column says who has it. The job was never a bigger list. It was finding the brands living the problem right now.

The story02

Three chapters, one lesson.

Draw the map

We went broad on purpose - but never generic. Before a brand heard from us, we read its storefront, found its closest competitor, and drafted a study topic for it, so the first email opened with a question written for the reader's role and listed what 50 of their own customers would tell them. Over a thousand replies came back, and drafting a study topic for each brand became part of every campaign that followed. But the replies that turned into real conversations all had one thing in common - the person was already in motion. At a conference, posting about the problem, hiring for it. That pass drew the map: which segments responded.

Email the moment

So we stopped emailing lists and started emailing moments: attendees of the industry's main research conference, people publicly posting about the problem. The sharpest proof: on the best signal list, 1 in 9 replied wanting to talk.

Own one event

Then we focused on one industry event: twelve campaigns before, during and after, in two founders' voices. Follow-up arrived while the conversations were still fresh.

This is what “broad” looked like in practice. Six roles, each with its own opening question - and no two brands received the same email:

FromSravanthi Kadali · Persona

To{{email}}

SubjectSpeak to {{company_name}} Customers

{{first_name}}, when you started {{company_name}} you probably talked to customers every week. How many this month?

The data: 40% of new products fail in year one. The fix is 50 customer conversations.

The problem: focus groups cost $10K and take weeks. Surveys don’t let you ask “why?” So most teams just guess based on sales data.

I built an AI interview agent for {{company_name}} - in a week, your team would know:

1. {{insight_1}}
2. {{insight_2}}
3. {{insight_3}}

Worth a look?

- Sravanthi

An excerpt from the founder version of the merchant email. {{insight_1}} through {{insight_3}} drafted per brand before first contact: why buyers pick its closest competitor, what its own customers say when they recommend it, and one insight written from the brand’s storefront.

The offer03

The offer beat the copy.

We invited prospects to a small event and shared a study topic drafted for their brand, with questions we could put to their customers. Both gave people a reason to reply.

FromSravanthi Kadali · Persona

To{{email}}

Subject{{first_name}} - come say hi at {{conference}}

{{first_name}} - we’re on the floor at {{conference}} today through close.

If you have a few minutes, I’d love to grab you between sessions and walk through the study we built for {{company_name}}.

A couple of the questions we pulled for it:

And final reminder for {{event}} before the show gets going - we leave tomorrow from the hotel lobby. Here’s a link to the invite.

Hope to see you there.

- Sravanthi

An excerpt from the during-show email. Event details are anonymized and the photo is omitted. {{question_1}} and {{question_2}} drawn from the study topic drafted for each recipient’s brand.

The principles04

The rules we built it by.

01
Moments beat listsThe person who ignored a cold pitch replies after a conference. Nothing about them changed. The timing did.
02
Small and warm beats big and cold18 carefully chosen contacts outperformed 1,600 filtered ones.
03
The offer matters more than the writingAn invitation to a small event gave prospects a reason to meet.
04
Arrive with the work already doneEvery brand’s study topic was drafted before its first email. The outreach opened with something useful.

The impact05

From single-digit replies to 111 conversations.

111Positive replies in 20 weeks

13×More conversations per 1,000 emails on signal lists vs broad lists

Read the next case studyHow Persona cut lead response from 3 days to 30 minutes and doubled the demos booked using Attio, Clay and n8n workflows

Persona -
The Insights Company

Their buyers were not cold. They were hidden.

Three chapters, one lesson.

The offer beat the copy.

The rules we built it by.

From single-digit replies to 111 conversations.

Your best buyers are not cold. They are hidden.