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If the founder is strong enough, it should not matter IMO.
The biggest thing is that you have to be a very, very strong self-starter. One of the things a partnership gives you is socially constructed motivation. A single founder has to be able to self-motivate to a degree that most human beings cannot.
Your chances are way better if you're already making money. I won't say that's a surefire way of getting in, but if you can prove that you can make money by already being profitable, I think you might have a decent shot.
There's a reason there is a bit of selection bias towards multiple founders. It's just more feasible.
In the end YC wants to fund people who will have a good likelihood of succeeding.
That being said, I think if you're a single founder in that position, applying for the experience of going through YC rather than the need is a great idea.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would you want to invest in someone who will wait indefinitely to find the ideal teammate while [s]he actually needs to hire sub-optimal people in order to grow the company? It's okay to postpone starting a startup, but if you want to say that you're started and get funded, then you have to show that you won't even consider a possibility of postponing growth for reasons you can avoid.
There's a world of difference between a hire and a co-founder. Being concerned about character and honesty is very, very legitimate in a startup scene with a ton of sociopathic reptiles and fast-talking flakes floating around.
These scenarios are comparable both on 'ability to build stuff faster than 1 person' and 'demonstrated ability to build a team' scales.
Let's say you don't have an ideal co-founder - one who complements your skills and whom you trust implicitly and deeply (like how it's described in this nice Venturehacks piece - http://venturehacks.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/... ). Does it then make sense to bring on board a sub-optimal co-founder, one whose skill sets may be similar to yours, and who may not share that close a friendship or history wit…
Plus, confounding a company together is hard, being a single founder is harder, but I think bringing a second founder in later is the hardest maneuver of them all.
You will resent the decisions he makes concerning your baby without your history in the project. He will resent the lack of immediate trust and freedom.
I don't say this to discourage having a cofounder that you think is a perfect fit. That would be my #1 choice of course. But being a single founder is worlds preferable to having a cofounder setup that goes sour.
Yes, we still have a higher bar for single founders, because it will be harder for them.
So I am looking for a cofounder to improve business model and to apply to YC. I am currently developing a chat application made for group chating and easy switch between conversations. The app is named ChatStrum (http://www.chatstrum.com)
If you are interested in the startup please email me to javier@chatstrum.com. I also invite you to see a demo of the app: https://vimeo.com/75747076
Javier
Yes, we still have a higher bar for single founders, because it will be harder for them.
Is there any data to suggest that single founders who overcome the increased difficulty also have greater success than their peers? Or is it like running with rocks in your shoes — unnecessarily painful?
Being a single founder isn't like building up a muscle that'll make you bigger, faster, stronger—there are world-level parallelism problems you can't accomplish alone (work and fundraise, work and promote, sleep and work).
Perhaps a better title is "single bootstrap'r." All you really need is to build something other people find interesting to get attention to attract validation to pull in other people who share your vision (who, since they are starting right after you, become defacto founders).
The single founder problem is more "Will you accept someone who is capable but hasn't found any smart friends yet?" and less "I can build a $50 million company all by myself. Just give me $100k. Please?"
The biggest issue for solo founders is the mental toll of a startup. Startups are hard, and you need that second mind to help you pull through the hardest parts. When you have two people, getting through the soul-crushing lows is a little easier because odds are both of you won't be miserable at the same time.