The people behind the beachhead. When marketing gets hard, come back here and ask: what would Sarah search, read, trust, and click? Companion to
gtm-strategy.md. Personas are illustrative archetypes — refine with real client interviews. Last updated: [PLACEHOLDER: date]
Primary persona — "Sarah" (the one we build for first)
Sarah, 34 · British · living in Tokyo · corporate professional
- Situation: relocated ~18 months ago for work. Competent and busy on the outside; isolated underneath. Friends and family are 8 time zones away. Doesn't speak enough Japanese to navigate local mental-health services, and isn't sure they'd "get" her anyway.
- What she's feeling: loneliness, low-level anxiety, identity wobble ("who am I here?"), strain on a long-distance or cross-cultural relationship, pressure to seem fine.
- What she wants: to talk to someone in English who understands expat life — without flying home, without a months-long waitlist, without explaining the basics of being an outsider.
- Trigger: a bad week. She opens Google at 11pm and types "English speaking therapist Tokyo" or "online therapy for expats."
- Objections / friction: Is this person actually qualified? Will they understand my situation? What's the time difference for sessions? How much, and can I cancel? Is my data private?
- Where she spends time: Google, expat Facebook groups ("Tokyo Expats", "British in Japan"), Reddit (r/Tokyo, r/expats, r/japanlife), LinkedIn, Instagram.
- Why Faresay wins her: the page she lands on is about her life, the therapist is verified and English-speaking with cross-cultural experience, booking shows her timezone, the price is clear, and someone replies quickly. Trust, fit, no friction.
Her one-line job-to-be-done: "Help me find a therapist who understands what it's like to live here as a foreigner — quickly, in English, that I can trust."
Secondary persona — "Marco" (breadth check)
Marco, 41 · Italian · living in Singapore · senior tech/finance
- Situation: high earner, high stress, frequent mover (3rd country in 8 years). Burnout building; marriage strained by relocations; doesn't want a colleague to know he's struggling.
- Wants: discreet, professional, English-speaking therapy that fits a packed calendar across time zones; quality over price.
- Searches: "confidential online therapy", "executive stress therapist", "therapy for expats Singapore".
- Why Faresay: privacy + verified quality + timezone-aware booking; price is not the barrier —
trust and fit are. (Validates the higher expat price point in
financial-model.md.)
Secondary persona — "Aisha" (corridor breadth)
Aisha, 29 · British-Pakistani · living in Dubai · marketing professional
- Situation: moved for a great job; loves it but feels culturally between worlds; family pressure back home; few people she can be fully open with.
- Wants: a therapist who understands identity, belonging and bicultural life — culturally sensitive, English-speaking, non-judgemental.
- Searches: "therapist who understands cultural identity", "English therapist Dubai", "online therapy expats UAE".
- Why Faresay: the positioning ("therapy that understands international life") and the ability to filter for a therapist with relevant cultural/identity experience.
How to use these personas
- Channels: go where they actually are (§3 of
gtm-strategy.md) — their Facebook groups, subreddits, search terms. - Messaging: write to Sarah's 11pm feeling, not to "the mental-health market."
- Product: the objections above are a backlog — verified badges, timezone display, clear pricing,
fast response, privacy assurances (see
product-requirements-document.md). - SEO: their literal searches are your landing-page titles.
- Refine: replace these archetypes with real client interviews as soon as you have clients. [RESEARCH NEEDED: 5–10 interviews with early expat clients to validate triggers, objections, channels.]