Method & sources

What counts as a one-person company

A business that one person runs, with no employees, whether it is a sole trade, a one-owner company or an online business with no legal entity. Every species page says how we know: the founder said so, the business says so on its own site, a platform profile lists a team of one, or a named publication reported it.

We drop businesses that have two or more founders, staff, or that we cannot show to be operating.

Where the facts come from

What the business sells, to whom, and what it charges: the business's own website, read on the date shown on the page.
Income: only when the founder said it, or a payment platform verified it through the business's payment account, or a named publication reported it. Each figure shows its basis, the date and a link to the source.
How it started and grew: the founder's own words (interviews, about pages, posts) and named reports. Quotes are checked word for word against the source before we use them.

Discovery of candidate businesses starts from public founder-interview libraries, product directories and payment-verified revenue profiles. Starter Story interviews are cited only where the founder's own statement exists nowhere else.

How income is labelled

Founder-reported: the founder stated it publicly, on the date shown. We cannot verify it.
Platform-verified: read from the business's payment account through a verification platform, as of the sync date shown.
Media-reported: stated by a named publication quoting the founder.

Income is never presented as current, and estimates by third parties are never used. The stats pages count only these figures, and the sample is self-selected: founders who share income are not a random sample of one-person companies.

What we leave out

Adult, gambling and get-rich-quick businesses; courses that sell the idea of making money online; anything we cannot check against a first-hand source. We do not list contact details of founders.

Adding or correcting an entry

Founders can submit their own business. Submissions are reviewed by a person and nothing goes live automatically. If a page is wrong, say so in the chat or through the submit page and we will check the source and fix it.

What we do not do

We do not raise funds, hold money or promise returns, and we do not promise that a submission will lead to an introduction or any follow-up. Nothing here is financial, legal or business advice.