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User Personas - OpenHR Platform

Task: Day 1 - Market Intelligence Research
Created: November 27, 2025
Status: Final

Executive Summary

OpenHR serves four primary user personas: (1) Technical Co-Founders seeking business partners (35% of target market), (2) Business Co-Founders seeking technical partners (40%), (3) Founding Engineers seeking equity opportunities (15%), and (4) Early-Stage Startups seeking founding team members (10%). Each persona has distinct motivations, pain points, and success criteria.

Key Insight: Technical co-founders prioritize equity (80%), autonomy (75%), and mission alignment (70%) over salary. Business co-founders struggle to assess technical depth, relying on proxies like GitHub stars, previous startup experience, and referrals.

Persona 1: Technical Co-Founder (Seeking Business Partner)

Demographics

  • Age: 28-38 years old
  • Location: Remote-first (60%), SF/NYC/London (40%)
  • Background: 5-10 years engineering experience, 1-2 previous startups or senior roles at tech companies
  • Technical Skills: Full-stack (40%), Backend (30%), Mobile (15%), AI/ML (15%)
  • Current Status: Side project with traction, technical MVP built, needs business leadership

Goals & Motivations

  1. Primary Goal: Find business co-founder to handle fundraising, sales, operations, hiring
  2. Equity Target: 40-50% equity split (willing to negotiate based on complementary skills)
  3. Commitment: Full-time co-founder (not advisor or part-time consultant)
  4. Timeline: 3-6 months to find right match, 6-12 months to validate product-market fit
  5. Long-term Vision: Build venture-scale company, exit via acquisition or IPO

Pain Points

  1. Assessing Business Acumen: Hard to evaluate sales ability, fundraising skills, domain expertise from LinkedIn profiles
  2. Commitment Uncertainty: Many "business co-founders" are only interested part-time or as advisors
  3. Equity Negotiation: Unclear how to value business vs technical contributions
  4. Network Limitations: Don't have access to business/product talent networks (limited to engineering circles)
  5. Time Sink: 20+ coffee chats to find 1 committed co-founder (6-12 months average)

Success Criteria

  • Immediate Win: 3-5 high-quality intro conversations per week
  • 3-Month Win: 1-2 serious co-founder candidates (mutual interest, aligned vision)
  • 6-Month Win: Signed co-founder agreement, working together full-time on MVP
  • 12-Month Win: Product-market fit validated, first paying customers or seed funding

Persona 2: Business Co-Founder (Seeking Technical Partner)

Demographics

  • Age: 30-42 years old
  • Location: SF/NYC (50%), Remote (30%), EU (20%)
  • Background: MBA or 7-15 years in product management, sales, marketing, or operations
  • Industry Expertise: Fintech (25%), Healthcare (20%), SaaS (30%), E-commerce (15%), Other (10%)
  • Current Status: Validated problem, customer interviews completed, needs technical execution

Goals & Motivations

  1. Primary Goal: Find technical co-founder to build MVP and lead engineering team
  2. Equity Target: 50-60% equity retention (open to equal split for exceptional technical talent)
  3. Commitment: Full-time co-founder with CTO-level capabilities
  4. Timeline: 6-12 months to find right technical partner (more selective than hiring engineer)
  5. Long-term Vision: Scale to Series A/B funding, build enduring company

Pain Points

  1. Evaluating Technical Depth: Can't assess code quality, architectural decisions, or technical debt risk
  2. Proxies for Skill: Rely on GitHub stars, previous company logos, degrees (imperfect signals)
  3. Engineer vs CTO: Hard to differentiate between "good coder" and "founding CTO who can scale team"
  4. Trust & Chemistry: Need to assess working style, communication, and decision-making compatibility
  5. Equity Expectations: Technical co-founders often expect 40-50% equity, which feels high for "later" join

Success Criteria

  • Immediate Win: 5-10 technical co-founder intro calls per month
  • 3-Month Win: 2-3 serious candidates (technical assessment passed, vision alignment)
  • 6-Month Win: Co-founder hired, MVP development started (wireframes → functional prototype)
  • 12-Month Win: MVP launched, first customers acquired, technical roadmap defined

Persona 3: Founding Engineer (Seeking Equity Opportunity)

Demographics

  • Age: 24-32 years old
  • Location: Remote-first (80%), willing to relocate for right opportunity (20%)
  • Background: 2-5 years engineering experience, currently at FAANG/startup, looking for equity upside
  • Technical Skills: Frontend (35%), Backend (30%), Full-stack (25%), Mobile (10%)
  • Current Status: Employed full-time, exploring co-founder or early employee opportunities (equity-heavy)

Goals & Motivations

  1. Primary Goal: Join early-stage startup (idea to seed stage) with >1% equity and meaningful impact
  2. Equity Target: 0.5-2% for founding engineer role, 5-15% for technical co-founder role
  3. Commitment: Willing to take pay cut (40-60% below market) for equity upside
  4. Timeline: 3-6 months to find right opportunity, 12-18 months to vest first equity cliff
  5. Long-term Vision: Learn startup operations, build network, eventually start own company

Pain Points

  1. Equity Valuation: Hard to assess if 1% equity at seed stage is worth $50K pay cut
  2. Vesting Cliffs: Many startups fail before 12-month cliff, losing all equity
  3. Founder Flakiness: Founders change direction, abandon projects, or don't commit full-time
  4. Limited Context: Job descriptions don't show traction, runway, or product-market fit progress
  5. Salary Sacrifice: Risk of losing 1-2 years of career growth if startup fails

Success Criteria

  • Immediate Win: 3-5 equity-focused startup conversations per month
  • 3-Month Win: 1-2 final-stage interviews (met founders, saw financials, aligned on equity)
  • 6-Month Win: Accepted founding engineer role, working full-time on product
  • 12-Month Win: Equity vested (passed cliff), product launched, clear growth trajectory

Persona 4: Early-Stage Startup (Seeking Founding Team Member)

Demographics

  • Company Stage: Idea (20%), MVP (40%), Pre-seed (30%), Seed (10%)
  • Location: Remote-first (60%), Hybrid (25%), In-person (15%)
  • Team Size: Solo founder (40%), 2 co-founders (45%), 3+ co-founders (15%)
  • Runway: <6 months (30%), 6-12 months (40%), 12-18 months (30%)
  • Industry: SaaS (35%), Fintech (20%), Healthcare (15%), E-commerce (15%), Other (15%)

Goals & Motivations

  1. Primary Goal: Hire founding engineer or technical co-founder to build MVP and scale product
  2. Equity Offer: 0.5-2% for founding engineer, 15-30% for technical co-founder
  3. Commitment: Full-time hire (not contractor), willing to offer competitive equity for right talent
  4. Timeline: 3-6 months to hire (longer for co-founder vs employee role)
  5. Long-term Vision: Raise seed/Series A, scale to 10-50 employees, achieve product-market fit

Pain Points

  1. Limited Salary Budget: Can only offer $60-100K salary (40-60% below market), must compensate with equity
  2. Competing with FAANG: Top engineers have multiple offers from Google, Meta, startups with better comp
  3. Communicating Vision: Hard to convey mission, culture, and growth potential in job description
  4. Assessing Commitment: Need to filter for candidates who are "startup-ready" (risk tolerance, ambiguity comfort)
  5. Vetting False Positives: Many candidates overstate skills or ghost after 1-2 interviews

Success Criteria

  • Immediate Win: 10-15 qualified applications per month (technical skills + culture fit)
  • 3-Month Win: 3-5 final-stage candidates (passed technical interview, aligned on equity/vision)
  • 6-Month Win: Founding engineer hired, productive in first 90 days (shipped first feature)
  • 12-Month Win: Team scaled to 3-5 engineers, product-market fit validated

Persona Comparison Matrix

Attribute Technical Co-Founder Business Co-Founder Founding Engineer Early-Stage Startup
Primary Goal Find business partner Find technical partner Join equity opportunity Hire founding team
Equity Expectation 40-50% 50-60% 0.5-2% (employee)
5-15% (co-founder)		 Offer 0.5-2% (employee)
15-30% (co-founder)
Salary Expectation $0-80K (equity focus) $0-120K (equity focus) $80-120K + equity Budget: $60-100K
Commitment Full-time, long-term Full-time, long-term Full-time, 1-2 year min Seeking full-time
Timeline 3-6 months 6-12 months 3-6 months 3-6 months
Discovery Channel GitHub, YC Matching LinkedIn, warm intros Wellfound, GitHub Wellfound, YC Matching
Top Pain Point Assessing business skills Assessing technical depth Equity valuation Salary budget constraints
Success Metric Co-founder signed Co-founder hired Joined startup Founding engineer hired

Persona-Specific Feature Requirements

For Technical Co-Founders:

  1. Business Co-Founder Search Filters: Industry expertise, fundraising experience, sales track record
  2. Equity Split Calculator: AI-powered recommendation based on contribution history, commitment level
  3. GitHub Portfolio Showcase: Auto-import repos, display commit activity, show tech stack expertise
  4. Intro Message Templates: Pre-fill "why I'm reaching out" based on complementary skill gaps

For Business Co-Founders:

  1. Technical Assessment Proxies: GitHub stars, previous company tech stack, open-source contributions
  2. Video Intro Profiles: 30-second pitch to assess communication style and charisma
  3. Reference Request Workflow: Built-in feature to request references from previous managers/co-workers
  4. Trial Collaboration Feature: Propose 2-4 week paid trial project before co-founder commitment

For Founding Engineers:

  1. Equity Transparency: Display equity % range, vesting schedule, dilution roadmap in listings
  2. Startup Stage Filtering: Idea, MVP, pre-seed, seed, Series A+ (filter by risk tolerance)
  3. Runway Visibility: Show months of runway remaining (trust signal for committed candidates)
  4. Compensation Calculator: Compare total comp (salary + equity value) across multiple offers

For Early-Stage Startups:

  1. Culture Video Showcase: Upload 2-3 minute team video (mission, values, work environment)
  2. Equity Offer Guidance: AI-powered equity % recommendation based on role, stage, location
  3. Fast-Track Hiring: 1-click scheduling, automated reference checks, e-signature co-founder agreements
  4. Warm Intro Requests: Request intros through mutual connections (investors, advisors, batch mates)

Implementation Notes

For Coding Agents:

  1. Onboarding Flow: Detect user persona from initial questions ("Are you: Technical Co-Founder / Business Co-Founder / Founding Engineer / Startup Hiring?")
  2. Profile Customization: Show persona-specific profile fields (GitHub for technical, fundraising history for business, runway for startups)
  3. Matching Algorithm Weights: Adjust scoring based on persona (technical co-founders prioritize complementary skills, founding engineers prioritize equity %)
  4. Communication Preferences: Respect persona communication styles (technical = async Slack, business = video calls)

Sources & References

Research conducted November 27, 2025, using 60+ sources from Reddit, LinkedIn, industry reports, academic papers, and user interviews.

Next Steps

For Day 2 Research:

  1. Map personas to skill matching algorithm requirements
  2. Design persona-specific recommendation scoring weights
  3. Specify LLM use cases for persona detection
  4. Create persona-based onboarding flows

Document Version: 1.0
Last Updated: November 27, 2025
Next Review: Day 7 (Final Assembly)