I've noticed there seems to be two definitions of a solo founder. 1) Single hacker trying to build a business and the product at the same time by themselves.

I've noticed there seems to be two definitions of a solo founder. 1) Single hacker trying to build a business and the product at the same time by themselves. They do everything, by themselves. 2) A business where there is a single founder with all the equity. They have employees and those employees are paid with currency. In the case of 1, I think it's a very hard road. Most software is built by more than one person, and most businesses must involve more than one person. You can of course make pretty good money off of freelancing, but building a business around a product is tough. Of course, not impossible. In the case of 2, you need to be willing to "put your money where your mouth is" because you'll need to pay people. And even then, if you see any success and want to grow faster, you probably won't be the only shareholder for long. Jeff Bezos started Amazon alone, but they're a public company now so there are lots of shareholders. However, it is interesting to look at eg Sergei Brin's net worth as a ratio of Google's market cap versus the same for Bezos and Amazon. Not splitting equity in the beginning makes a big difference later on if everything goes according to plan (which it rarely does, but hey). The OP probably falls into definition #1