I think that the (increasing but by no means new) viability of single-founder startups is an inevitable consequence of the environment for all startups continuing to get radically better. If two guys could make non-trivial web services back when making a web service started with, quite literally, programming your own HTTP server since you didn't have a hundred thousand to buy one, that implies very good things for a "team" which has a decade and change of OSS to lean on.
In addition to OSS, the huge existing distribution channels like organic SEO, AdWords, and all those things you cool people use are also a major draw. Infrastructure has improved by orders of magnitude. APIs and snap-in services are getting better all the time -- ten years ago, payment processing was a multi-week endeavor, now you can do voice calls in about ten minutes of work. Scaling is... is solved too strong a word? There has been huge diffusion of the black magic of how to setup and architect things, both in the n-tier server architecture sense of the word and in the "here's how you get capital without slicing open chicken entrails" and "here's how you get users" senses of the word.
In addition to OSS, the huge existing distribution channels like organic SEO, AdWords, and all those things you cool people use are also a major draw. Infrastructure has improved by orders of magnitude. APIs and snap-in services are getting better all the time -- ten years ago, payment processing was a multi-week endeavor, now you can do voice calls in about ten minutes of work. Scaling is... is solved too strong a word? There has been huge diffusion of the black magic of how to setup and architect things, both in the n-tier server architecture sense of the word and in the "here's how you get capital without slicing open chicken entrails" and "here's how you get users" senses of the word.
It is a great time to be alive.