TL;DR -- The US census provides the wrong data to answer this question, but I can't think of a better way to spend a cold Sunday morning....:)<p>I did some digging on the US census site and found these numbers (for 2008):<p>- 22,614,000 returns were filed for non farm sole proprietorships. Of these, 16,434,000 indicated any type of income. Combined, these 16.4 million sole proprietorships reported a net income (less loss) of $265 billion.<p>- 3,146,000 returns were filed for partnerships. These returns showed a total of 19,300,000 partners. Of these, 1,609,000 returns indicated any type of income. Combined, the 1,609,000 partnerships reported a net income (less loss) of $458 billion.<p>Some numbers:<p>- 72.67% of sole proprietorships reported income.<p>- 51.14% of partnerships reported income.<p>- 22.614 million sole proprietorships generated $256b in net income (less loss). This is an average of $11,320.42 per proprietorship started.<p>- 3.146 million partnerships (covering 19.3 million people) generated $458 billion in net income (less loss). This is an average of $145,581.69 per partnership started. Or, this is a net income (less loss) of $23,730.57 per partner.<p>Using US census information on non incorporated businesses (in 2008) provides some interesting space for thought. A higher percentage of sole proprietorships report income, but on average partners in a non incorporated business report more income. This seems to indicate that it might be easier to get started if you go alone, but adding founders increases the magnitude of success (when it works out). Logically, this makes some sense, though I hesitate to make any conclusions based off of this data.<p>While this data is interesting, it is ultimately quite useless at answering the question. First off, this data is on all non incorporated businesses (other than farms). Therefore, this data may or may not be applicable to technology. The Deloitte report (and the writer's research) indicates that the top 100 technology companies have an average of 2.12 founders. The US census data gives an average of 1.62 founders per company. That difference could indicate differences in the two populations (ie - tech companies versus all companies) or sampling differences (Vibhu looks at 100 companies, I'm looking at data on 41 million).