Mike Taber writes about running a software business alone, micro-ISVs, and entrepreneurship, and co-hosts a podcast for small founders.
HN commenters point to it as a resource for solo founders and link its 'single founder myth' and micro-ISV posts, alongside the related podcast.
Rob Walling is a solo entrepreneur that hires Virtual Assistants, coders, designers etc.. in order to create/manage his own products (i.e. http://hittail.com http://www.dotnetinvoice.com/ and others).
You can get more info about how he is doing by reading his blog http://www.softwarebyrob.com or better listening to the podcast http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/ he co-host with Mike Tabber (another solo entrepeneur, his site http://www.singlefounder.com/ )
Here's a great article about the "single founder myth" that also references pg:
http://www.singlefounder.com/2006/10/23/thesinglefoundermyth/
I'd say that this has a lot to do with the availability of cloud computing, app stores, and powerful third-party APIs. There are probably thousands of profitable single founders out there.
See also: Micro-ISV.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_ISV
http://www.amazon.com/Micro-ISV-Vision-Reality-Bob-Walsh/dp/1590596013
http://ericsink.com/bos/Micro_ISV.html
Make sure to read this to get a different take though.
http://www.singlefounder.com/the-day-the-microisv-movement-died/
FWIW there are 22K google hits on MicroISV and variations -
https://www.google.com/search?q="Micro-ISV"|"MicroISV"|"μISV"
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Micro-ISV.html
http://www.microisv.com/ (defunct)
http://www.singlefounder.com/the-day-the-microisv-movement-died/
Yes, he (the author) also co-hosts an excellent podcast [1] with Mike Taber [2]. I know they're both on HN, but I'm not sure of their usernames.
[1] http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com
[2] http://www.singlefounder.com
less pejorative term than "lifestyle business"
Independent business: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_business
MicroISV: http://www.singlefounder.com/2009/11/17/the-day-the-microisv-movement-died/