
Top 10 One-person Startups - ub
http://blog.onlineclock.net/top-10-one-person-startups/
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dkfmn
Seems pretty misleading to call these one-person startups. Maybe PlentyOfFish
should qualify because it was run by one person for years with significant
revenues and profits, and there may be a good case for DuckDuckGo.

I can't say with absolute certainty about all the rest but many were solo
founders who quickly attracted a team.

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theIV
I'm fairly certain Marco's Instapaper was a one man project until he sold it.
[0]

I can't really comment on the rest.

[0] [http://www.marco.org/about](http://www.marco.org/about) Past Projects

~~~
dkfmn
Appreciate the detail, that is one of the companies I didn't know well.

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pyb
Shel Kaphan, Amazon's first employee, should arguably be seen as a cofounder
of sorts:

 _Although he 's not officially considered a co-founder, he and Bezos were
discussing the company even before it was incorporated, and Bezos once
referred to him as "the most important person ever in the history of
Amazon.com."_

Source : [http://www.businessinsider.com/amazons-earliest-
employees-20...](http://www.businessinsider.com/amazons-earliest-
employees-2014-4)

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hemancuso
This should be titled one-founder startups. Spoiler: #1 is Amazon.

~~~
jasode
I understand the article's criteria for "one person" but I think it's worth it
to add some nuance to that list...

Amazon was "one person" as in boundaries defined by legal ownership of a
business entity, but it was really kicked off by hiring Shel Kaphan to
engineer their first web store. If Jeff Bezos was more inclusive, and/or Shel
Kaphan was more business-savvy, he arguably might have been a co-founder
instead of a forgotten employee (albeit a wealthy ex-employee.)

If we rule out situations like amazon, and listed only companies that were
truly "built" by one person until it reached critical mass, that would be a
much more interesting list.

~~~
api
I'd be really curious to see that too, especially if it remained one person
until revenue hit some kind of critical mass. One person builds, ships,
markets, ...

It's certainly possible but obviously very hard for many reasons.

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dblacc
The top 2 (Amazon & Ebay) where founded in almost a different internet age. It
makes wonder if a solo founder could create such a large company today.

~~~
danbucholtz
I think it's possible. How many founders does a typical start-up have? I guess
I don't see a huge difference from one to two founders. I never was a venture
capital guy until recently, but I think it's pretty important to success.
Having some marketing money as well as the money to hire a few guys to help
out early makes a huge difference.

My night project, PaperBox (gopaperbox.com), started with just two guys doing
it a combined 20 hours per week or so. Over the course of 6 months or so, we
have released several updates and grown substantially. I do wonder what we
could be if we could commit to it full time and have any sort of a marketing
budget.

~~~
dblacc
Im not a founder so my knowledge is somewhat limited, but from what I see
around me most of the known or more 'successful' startups tend to have at
least 2 founders. There must be some reason/correlation behind that right ?

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mhartl
They missed one of my favorite examples: Mojang, makers of Minecraft (with
single founder Markus Persson, a.k.a. Notch).

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ojosilva
How about a single-founder startup list?

I wish I had one so I could show it to the VCs who we're closing a round with.
They insist I get a co-founder for the business side (I'm a techie), with
lot's of contacts. I said I prefer to hire a biz person instead, but they say
we can't afford, at this stage, to spend our money on a top-level exec. So it
we'll be better if we just find one that's willing to become a co-founder. I
replied to them a "co-founder" is much more than an exec with lots of equity
and a below-market wage. Years ago it would have been great to have a business
co-founder so I could focus more on product. But not after 4 years, with a
team of 11 and a profitable enterprise software business. But I don't know if
that's common or not. Is it? I feel hiring a co-founder (sic) is not a formula
for success.

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api
I'm sort of in the market for a co-founder, someone with a strong marketing,
sales, and biz-dev background most likely.

I'm the nerd looking for the suit, not the other way around, though I do have
some business experience myself. I at least know which way is up in the biz
domain. :)

But if I don't find such a person who really looks like a great fit (both
skills and personality/vision compatibility), I will go it alone. I consider
the sole founder path superior to a bad or hasty fit for a co-founder. I do
have a partnership and some advisor relationships in the works, so I'm not
totally alone. If I raise I'll also have investors to threaten to demote me if
the goals aren't m^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H I mean contribute
valuable insight.

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shuri
Doesn't imgur deserve to be here?

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petercooper
Techmeme only has 10,000 recurring readers? I don't believe that for a second.
I loaded the "source" for this info -
[http://www.businessinsider.com/techmeme-
growth-2014-3](http://www.businessinsider.com/techmeme-growth-2014-3) \- and
the only place 10,000 recurring readers is mentioned is in a _hypothetical_
example of how stats can be inflated by content sites, not actual stats for
Techmeme.

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kayhi
Anyone know of the top one-person start-ups as in a single person is still
running them?

I suspect it is in the area of affiliate marketing.

~~~
dkfmn
I second your industry suspicions. There are probably also some niche
subscription businesses out there like CandyJapan
([http://www.candyjapan.com/candy-japan-
crosses-10000-mrr](http://www.candyjapan.com/candy-japan-crosses-10000-mrr))
but at larger scale.

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Jayd2014
Chatroulette founder would be a suggestion for non-US founders. I heard his
site makes 100k per month from ad revenues.

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cpursley
Didn't know todoist is a single-founder company. I'm a big fan; only todo list
that's stuck.

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html5web
Almost all of them US based!

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soccergee
oh no. is this site down??? I was stoked on checking this out.

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Kabacaru
Couldn't even think of one woman to put in there?

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quotient
Why should the author try to fulfill some sort of gender-quota? The purpose of
the article is clearly to collate the top 10 single-founder startups, rather
than the top 5 male and top 5 female single-founder startups, etc.

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roberthahn
Disappointed there's no women on the list. Even more disappointed that fully 7
of the top 10 have no indication of revenue.

Remember: if there's no revenue, it's not a business. It's a hobby.

EDIT: To clarify, (I noted someone else pointing out it's very US-centric,
which is ANOTHER problem) I have serious doubts it's really the top 10 in the
world. More likely the top 10 this author has heard of.

~~~
funky_lambda
>Disappointed there's no women on the list

Maybe they should try harder then.

