I can see what you're saying, and I don't want to belabor it to death. But as the UX guy, a persona is what nails down the problem before ever coming to a solut

I can see what you're saying, and I don't want to belabor it to death. But as the UX guy, a persona is what nails down the problem before ever coming to a solution. Maybe we're talking about different types of personas. The question I'd ask from the very beginning is "who are we building this for and what problem is it going to solve?" And adding a little definition to the "who" and what problem they have is the first step in building anything, and making sure you don't waste time. In the end, from day 1, from the first utterance of what your startup is about, you're building something for a human. Without empathy, you can't build the right product. And you can't empathize without personas. It's not even really a question of user experience, or user interface, it's just about nailing down the human problem.