Ask YC: Can a single person develop a website?

Yes they can :) Plenty of highly successful websites started their lives as one man bands.

of course. Start with a piece of paper and do a high level plan of the main goals/sections of the site. I find it helpful to use persona/role-driven design here. Once i have the main goals, then I develop the home page for a role inside Photoshop. I then develop an inner page. Once i have that, I move on to [web language of choice (i.e. php/asp.net)] and develop a few templates. Then I develop the home page and the inner pages using pure html (no database). Once I'm happy there, I move on to DB stuff nad oo-level stuff to support it.

I did all of http://www.learnsqlserver.com/, http://www.learnitfirst.com/ and http://www.videobooks.com/ sites by myself. It took a while but so what? I'm proud of the fact that I did it and I learned so much along the way.

It kind of depends on the complexity and size of the site. You want to make sure you can have it done in a reasonable timeframe.

I'm doing all of the development on my site http://collegeacb.com but its a really simple concept (basically just a forum). One thing I have found really helpful though is having a cheerleader. Nominate someone to keep you focused (even if they don't do anything else) so that you don't give up half way through.

Having a prototype makes everything easier, including finding partners. Build your prototype, and then while you're out socializing with other startup founders, and/or beating the bushes for customers, investors, business development opportunities, and press, you can also mention "I'm also looking for another developer to join the company in a partnership role". Somebody will know somebody, and if you're selling the dream effectively they'll be inclined to make that introduction.

The problem with people looking for business partners is often that they imagine that an idea is enough to persuade someone to get involved. It rarely is. An existing friendship might be enough, but a stranger with a new idea (and nothing else) is just annoying. So, building a prototype proves you're dedicated enough to put some of your own skin in the game before asking anyone else to do so. That's a big win.

And, of course, there have been single-founder success stories. More than a few, in fact. So, if you never find a co-founder, if you can deliver a valuable product, you might still build a successful business. But it's obviously a harder row to hoe.

I built my proof-of-concept on my own.

Lessons learned:

- Working on your own rocks because - you can do what you want, when you want to.

- Working on your own sucks because - you do what you want, when you want to.

It isn't a route for the unmotivated. You also lack a feedback loop, so you can't be sure you are producing high quality stuff as there is no local sanity check.

I developed http://zerodaydeals.com (there is a good amount of back-end to it) as a one-person show and am developing http://overtrainer.com in the same way

By starting to develop the project, it'll probably be easier to find a partner because you'll have something to show them, and it demonstrates that you are the kind of person who actually does something about his ideas other than just talk about them.

"Can a single person develop a website?"

Absolutely! Personally, I've lost track of the number of trivial websites I've created... sites of some value, exactly three.

It can be done.