be a sole founder and get 100% equity. then land some paying customers. keep the 100% equity. add features, polish, maybe hire other folks, maybe give away some equity early to bring on a contributing partner with key skills, etc. then this whole "1% is generous" belief and worrying about dilution caused by outside investment rounds simply goes away. does it always make sense? no. but I think it's ideal.
Of course it's "ideal", but in almost every case capitalization gives you a huge advantage and greatly increases your odds of success. You can only iterate and perform customer development as long as there is money to fund that. The less money you have, the greater your chance of failure (but the greater the reward at the end as well).
