# Quickstart

Set up a three-question Multiple-Choice Survey with a new population in General Research, start it, open the report and download the results as an Excel file.

On this page you set up your first study from start to finish: you create a small population in the General Research vertical, ask it a three-question Multiple-Choice Survey, open the report and download the results as an Excel file. The setup steps take about ten minutes. On top of that, you have to wait while the personas are created and the responses are generated; the app does not show an estimate for these waits.

A synthetic consumer (persona) is a virtual consumer sampled from Türkiye's population and income data and role-played by a language model. A population is the group of personas that answers your questions. For other concepts, see [Core concepts](/en/docs/getting-started/core-concepts).

> [!NOTE]
> You can follow this page even if your first study is a price test: in the Price Analysis (WTP) method, which measures willingness to pay (WTP), the vertical, population, preview and start steps are the same. When you choose the method (step 2), click the **Price Analysis** card instead of **Survey**; instead of writing questions (step 4), fill in the **Product Name**, **Minimum Price (₺)**, **Maximum Price (₺)** and **Price Step (₺)** fields. The estimated credits are the number of price points × the number of personas: 5 price points × 40 personas = 200 credits. Details of the price screen, the market price check and the report are on the [Price Analysis](/en/docs/research/price-analysis) page.

## Before you start

- **An SCL account.** If you don't have one, apply on the [early access](/en/early-access) page. Account, organisation and user settings are covered in [Account and organisation](/en/docs/account/account-and-organisation).
- **At least 500 credits.** A credit is the prepaid unit you spend to run studies. To create a General Research study in the **New Research** flow, you need at least 500 credits in your balance, whether you create a new population or select an existing one. This is a minimum, not the amount you will spend: the example on this page uses 120 credits. You can see your balance on the **Remaining credits:** line at the bottom of the sidebar; if you are a member of an organisation, this is the organisation's shared balance.

If your balance is below 500 credits, clicking **Create population** for a new population opens the **Insufficient Credits** dialog. With an existing population, no dialog opens: when you click **Continue with selected population**, no warning appears on screen and you do not move on to the next step. For details, see [Credits](/en/docs/account/credits) and [Buying credits and billing](/en/docs/account/buying-credits).

## Example study

Throughout this page, you set up the following study:

| Setting | Value in this example |
| --- | --- |
| Vertical | General Research |
| Method | Multiple-Choice Survey (**Survey** card) |
| Population | New, 40 personas, research topic "Premium coffee subscription" |
| Questions | 3 questions, all single-select |
| Estimated credits | 3 questions × 40 personas = 120 credits |

## 1. Log in and choose the vertical

1. On the **Sign in to your account** screen, enter your email address and password, then click **LOGIN**.
2. On the **Choose a vertical** screen that opens on the home page, click the **General Research** card.

A vertical is the area a study belongs to; you cannot use a population created in one vertical in another. You can return to the vertical picker later with the **New Research** item in the sidebar. For the other verticals, see [Verticals](/en/docs/research/verticals); for the overall layout of the screen, see [Interface tour](/en/docs/getting-started/interface-tour).

## 2. Choose the method

1. On the **Choose Your Research Type** screen, click the **Survey** card.

This card opens the Multiple-Choice Survey method: for each question, the personas choose one or more of the options you provide. To compare the other methods, see [Choosing the right method](/en/docs/research/choosing-a-method).

## 3. Create a new population

1. On the **Choose Population Mode** screen, click the **Create New Population** card.
2. If you like, type a name in the **Population Name** field. If you leave it blank, the population takes the research topic as its name.
3. Leave the default value of 40 in the **Population size** field. Below the field, it reads "40 synthetic consumers will be created."
4. In the **Research topic** field, type "Premium coffee subscription". SCL looks for a segmentation that divides the personas into market segments for this topic: it checks saved segmentations first and, if there is no suitable match, tries to prepare a new one for your topic.
5. Click **Find segmentation**. While the search runs, the button shows **Searching...**. If a new segmentation is being prepared, the search can take a minute or two; as long as this text is showing, the search is still running.
6. On the suggested segmentation card, click **Use segmentation**. If the card says **Segment rules found (v2)**, SCL has found ready-made segment rules for this topic and has accepted the segmentation automatically; skip this step.
7. Leave the filters as they are. An attribute set to **All** does not restrict the population.
8. In the **Population summary** panel on the right, click **Create population**.

Until you accept a segmentation, the filter area appears blurred and you cannot click **Create population**. If the message "No matching segmentation found for this product/brand" appears, describe the topic more clearly using the category or product name and search again (e.g. "Monthly coffee bean subscription"); do not use abbreviations. If you still get no result, write to the support team from the **Support** page in the sidebar ([Support and troubleshooting](/en/docs/account/support-and-troubleshooting)).

Creating a population does not use credits; only the 500-credit minimum above applies.

Filters, ratios and custom features are covered in [Creating a population](/en/docs/populations/creating-a-population) and [Filters and attributes](/en/docs/populations/filters-and-attributes).

## 4. Write your questions

The **Multiple-Choice Survey** screen opens. The badge next to the title first shows **Generating Personas...**, then **Personas Created** once the personas are ready. You can write your questions while the personas are being created in the background; you only need to wait for the badge to change before moving on to the next step.

Use these three questions in this example:

| Question | Answer options |
| --- | --- |
| How often do you buy coffee? | Every day; A few times a week; A few times a month; Less often |
| Which feature matters most to you in a coffee subscription? | Price; Coffee variety; Bean freshness; Delivery speed; None of these |
| How likely are you to try a premium coffee subscription? | Very likely; Somewhat likely; Undecided; Not very likely; Not at all likely |

1. In the **Survey Title** field, type "Coffee subscription pre-test".
2. On the **Create New Question** card, type the first question in the **Question Text:** field.
3. Type an option in the **Answer Options:** field and click **Add Option**. Repeat this for every option of the question; each question needs at least 2 options.
4. Leave **Answer Type** set to **Single Select**.
5. Click **Add Question to Survey**. The question appears as Q1 in the **Survey Questions** list.
6. Repeat steps 2–5 for the other two questions.
7. Once the badge shows **Personas Created**, the **Waiting...** button at the bottom changes to **Next Step**. Click **Next Step**.
8. In the **Are you sure you want to continue?** dialog, click **Continue**.

> [!TIP]
> Add options such as "None of these" and "Undecided". The personas treat these as valid answers too, so an undecided persona is not forced to pick one of the listed options.

The survey you write is saved to the **Surveys** library. For adding images, conditional questions and **Multi Select**, see [Multiple-Choice Survey](/en/docs/research/multiple-choice-survey); to reuse saved surveys, see [Survey library and question design](/en/docs/research/survey-library).

## 5. Check the preview and the credit estimate

The **Research Preview** screen opens. On the **Experiment Summary** card, check these values:

| Field | What it shows |
| --- | --- |
| **Person Count** | The number of personas taking part in the study (40 in this example) |
| **Question Count** | The number of questions in the survey (3) |
| **Credit Usage** | Your current balance / the estimated credits; if your balance is 1,250 credits, it shows **1.250/120** (Turkish number format) |

In General Research, the estimated credits for a Multiple-Choice Survey study are the number of questions × the number of personas: 3 × 40 = 120 credits. Credits are deducted from your balance once the responses have been generated and saved, not when you start the study.

> [!WARNING]
> If the first number in the **Credit Usage** field is smaller than the second, a red info icon appears next to it. You can still click **Start**, but if your balance does not cover the estimate, the study fails. Before you start, top up your balance with the **Buy Credits** button in the box that opens when you hover over the icon. Organisation members see this button too, but credits a member buys are not added to the organisation's shared balance and cannot be used for this study. If you are a member of an organisation, ask your organisation admin or the SCL team for more credits.

For how the preview and start steps work in the other methods, see [Starting a new study](/en/docs/research/new-study).

## 6. Start the study and track its progress

1. Click **Start**.
2. In the **Are you sure you want to continue?** dialog, click **Continue**. The **Start** button briefly shows **Starting...**.
3. On the progress screen, watch the status panel move through the **PREPARING**, **RUNNING** and **SAVING** stages.
4. When the study finishes, the **Your analysis is ready** card appears and the report opens automatically after 3 seconds. To open it without waiting, click **Go to Reports**.

You can leave the progress screen; the study keeps running in the background. If **Experiment Failed** appears, click **Back to Preview** and try again with **Start**. If the problem persists, see [Support and troubleshooting](/en/docs/account/support-and-troubleshooting).

## 7. Open the report

The top of the report page shows the **Research Report** label and your survey title. The summary cards show:

- **Participants**: the number of personas who responded.
- **Total Questions**: the number of questions in the survey.
- **Avg Response Rate**: for each question, the share of personas who answered it out of those who saw it, averaged across all questions.

On the **Response Distribution** tab, you see how many personas chose each option of each question, as a count and a percentage. The **Demographic Breakdown** and **Crosstab** tabs split the same responses by dimensions such as age, gender and SES (socio-economic status).

In a 40-persona population, segments are very small: each of the six SES classes gets 6–7 personas on average. The survey's **Demographic Breakdown** charts still show these small segments, whereas price reports hide segments with fewer than 5 personas. If you want to look at segments, make the population larger; even with 100 personas, each SES class gets only 16–17 personas on average. For details, see [Segmentation](/en/docs/results/segmentation).

You can find the report later on the **ANALYSIS** › **Reports** page in the sidebar, using the **Survey** filter.

Results are model output: they show the direction and size of a trend. Before high-stakes decisions, we recommend validating the results with real consumers. The reasons are explained in [Accuracy and limitations](/en/docs/getting-started/accuracy-and-limitations), and every section of the report in [Reading a report](/en/docs/results/reading-a-report).

## 8. Download the Excel file

1. Click the **Download Excel** button at the top of the report page.
2. While the file is being prepared, the button shows **Downloading Excel...**. When the file is ready, your browser downloads it.

The Excel file contains the response distribution tables, persona information and the raw responses; in the raw responses, each persona is a row and each question is a column. The **Download PDF** button next to it creates a PDF report from the same results. Opening the report and downloading files cost no credits. The contents of the files are covered in [Exporting and downloading](/en/docs/results/exporting).

## Next steps

- **Run a price test.** The steps are in [Price Analysis](/en/docs/research/price-analysis). If you are staying in the same category, click the **Select Existing Population** card in the population step and select this population; the personas are not generated again, so you do not have to wait for them to be created. Because personas are assigned to market segments based on the **Research topic**, this population's segments are based on coffee subscriptions; if you are testing a category other than coffee, create a new population.
- **Find the right method for your question.** The methods are compared in [Choosing the right method](/en/docs/research/choosing-a-method).
- **Learn the terms on screen.** See [Core concepts](/en/docs/getting-started/core-concepts).

## Related pages

- [Multiple-Choice Survey](/en/docs/research/multiple-choice-survey)
- [Creating a population](/en/docs/populations/creating-a-population)
- [Population library](/en/docs/populations/population-library)
- [Reading a report](/en/docs/results/reading-a-report)
- [Credits](/en/docs/account/credits)