The classic startup picture has two or three co-founders at a table. The data increasingly says otherwise. Carta, the company that manages ownership records for tens of thousands of US startups, reported in December 2025 that the share of new startups with a single founder rose from 23.7 percent in 2019 to 36.3 percent in the first half of 2025.
The trend, and how to read it
Carta’s Solo Founders Report, produced in partnership with the organization Solo Founders, draws on companies that use its platform, which is a large sample of US startups but not a census of every business. Its head of insights, Peter Walker, describes the 13-point rise in about five years as a big shift, one that reflects technology lowering the cost of creating a company.
Carta offers several explanations. AI tools have expanded what one person can accomplish in a limited amount of time, making it more feasible to build and sell alone. The success of solo-led companies, with Polymarket, Vercel and Wander cited as examples, may have helped validate the model among investors and inspired others. And for some founders, building alone reflects a preference for keeping creative control from the start.
Cheaper infrastructure matters too. Cloud hosting, ready-made payment and sign-in services, and visual no-code builders mean a small product no longer needs a team to stand up.
What suits one person
Solo-run companies tend to work when the product is narrow and the customer’s problem is clear. Typical candidates are niche software tools, plugins for an existing platform, tools aimed at developers, digital products such as templates and courses, and small subscription services. Businesses that need large sales teams, heavy infrastructure or regulatory approval before launch are much harder to run alone.
The economics also differ. With no co-founder salaries or equity splits, a small product can become profitable at modest revenue, and some solo founders choose to stay small on purpose rather than chase venture-scale growth. The subscription math in our explainer on the SaaS model applies at any size.
Where the model strains
The same data shows the costs. Solo-led companies represented 30 percent of startups founded in 2024, according to Carta, but received only 14.7 percent of the cash raised in priced equity rounds that year. The report adds that the share of venture dollars going to solo founders is growing, but the gap shows that many investors still favor teams.
Workload is the other obvious limit. One person has to cover product, sales, support, finance and legal matters, and illness or burnout stops everything. There is also no built-in colleague to challenge a weak idea, and isolation can wear down motivation.
Carta found that solo founders tend to hire their first employee sooner than multi-founder teams, with a median of 399 days from incorporation against 480 days. That is consistent with founders reaching the limits of what one person can do, though the report does not say why.
Habits that help
Solo founders who last tend to narrow their focus and talk to potential customers early, looking for paying interest before building much. They buy rather than build anything that is not their core product, and they automate routine work such as invoicing, scheduled tasks and monitoring. They track a few numbers weekly, usually revenue, churn and cash. They also build outside support, from peers and mentors to communities where they can get feedback, and they protect their own time and health, since sustained overwork damages the business before it damages the founder.
Planning for the worst is part of the discipline. Documentation, backups and a trusted person who can reach key accounts in an emergency make a one-person company less fragile.
Money and the next step
Many solo founders bootstrap from savings, freelance income or early revenue, which makes cash planning important. The figures to watch are covered in our guide to burn rate and runway. Signals that it is time to add people include a product growing faster than one person can support, customer requests that need specialist skills and a founder whose days are consumed by tasks someone else could do. Common first moves are a part-time support person, a contractor for design or development, or a co-founder who fills a gap.
This is general information, not financial, investment, tax or legal advice.
