[dangrossman]

There have been numerous solo founder startups funded by YC. Some of them were successful.

I've been making a living doing what you describe (idea -> design&code -> customer support&marketing) on my own for most of my life... I was 14 when I launched my first profitable website, I'm 27 now and support some 100k users myself.

If you're aiming to be a world-changing business, you'll eventually be hiring other people. I'm satisfied dealing with my couple hundred new customers a month, which I can support on my own, and who support my lifestyle.

[praveenaj]

Thanks for the reply. I launched my first website when I was 15 but it was a failure! I'm 22 now. Would you mind sharing what resources (books, methodologies, strategies etc) you referred to when making a profitable website with 100k users? Wow!

"you'll eventually be hiring other people" True. But I don't think It's the right moment now.

Cheers!

[dangrossman]

I wasn't even aware of the concept of a "startup" or what was going on in Silicon Valley when I started making most of my apps. I didn't have any books or strategies. I just made things I was interested in and thought other people would want to use, and some of those things stuck.

I make stuff and if I can get a couple active users, I'll never shut it down. Nothing happened overnight -- W3Counter has around 52000 users but that's after 7 years. I'm still hosting website guestbooks people created with one of my sites in 1996. I don't make much money from that site, but 15 years of accumulated inbound links and authority mean it'll always have traffic and PR I can leverage for kickstarting other sites.