Scientists have studied lone wolves for centuries, determining that they come in two varieties. They can come as older wolves driven from the pack by an Alpha, or they can be young wolves defecting from a group, choosing to be alone. Choosing to hunt alone. These wolves are young adults in search of new territory.
On a not unrelated note, here are some numbers from my childhood:
Siblings: 6
Average number of people in my home Monday through Saturday: 10
Average number of people at every Sunday night dinner: 25 +
I remember eating a meal alone for the first time in my life as a freshman in college. It was a bizarre, awkward experience I rushed through so fast, half of my chicken strips were scornfully chucked. Eventually, after several other attempts, I pushed through and discovered peaceful comfort in having a conversation with myself — dissecting my own thoughts without the familiar distraction of family argue-sations. Doing things on my own became a part of my personality. I may have been raised by a rowdy, supportive pack, but thoroughly came to think of myself as a lone wolf in my late 20’s.
Then I figured out I was wrong.
I started a business, by accident, on an April weekend in 2012. The business was a possible solution to the headache of parking, and that very first weekend there were 12 people working on the project.
Quickly though, I realized there were way too many people involved. My instinct lined up with advice I was receiving to pare it down significantly. This business could be built and run nimbly by a skeleton crew of people with defined skills.
Here’s an exhaustive list of my own skills: Some understanding of legal matters, thinking, talking.
Here’s what I needed: A team of mobile developers, a designer, a board of advisors with at least someone steeped in the market I was diving into, and a co-founder with equal passion and commitment.
I really needed that last one. And here’s who the team consisted of for almost the entirety of the business:
Me.
In 2014 I sold the business. Two investors bought something I built. That’s a great thing. But when I look back to make sense of it and reconcile why, deep down, I don’t feel what happened was a “success”, it comes right back to one thing:
Me.
Here’s what else scientists have learned about lone wolves: lone wolves have difficulty hunting, as wolves’ favorite prey, large ungulates, are nearly impossible for a single wolf to bring down alone. Instead, lone wolves will generally hunt smaller animals and scavenge carrion.
Technology has lowered the barrier to entry for learning just about anything. You want to learn Photoshop to design logos and app pages? There’s dozens of websites and hundreds of videos for free all across the internet. You want to learn about marketing and launching a product? It’s all right there on the internet. How about coding? I found so many great courses online, it took me a week just to choose one to get started on. It’s still easy to picture myself sitting at my computer all day “hunting smaller animals” by teaching myself a little each day.
It’s not that I didn’t know I needed help. One designer, referred by a good friend, bailed after asking me to wait a month for his “bandwidth” to improve. Another designer friend told me he just wasn’t into the idea enough (which is a great reason not to do something). But with time slipping by and work to be done, that’s basically where my search ended. I didn’t forge ahead. I retreated, thinking “I’ll do it myself.” Foolishly, this felt like taking real action — being resourceful. I was disguising giving up by renaming it self-reliance — taking on these small missions if only because a small victory every day felt like something positive in the face of such an enormous goal.
But every day spent alone “scavenging” and simply surviving, was another day lost to the opportunity to thrive within a pack.
I’ll always be in search of new territory. When I was young I’d get lost in the woods on purpose. This was always one part macho caveman genetics rearing its head, tempting me to go further, go deeper, if only to test my ability to push myself and be able to get back home. But the other part was something more elevated. An almost spiritual desire to see a new clearing or riverbed no one had ever seen before.
Maybe I’m still getting lost on purpose, maybe I’m still needing to push myself to feel alive, and maybe I’m still hungering to explore new territory. But I know there’s a line, a boundary, beyond which it’s not possible to go alone. Being a lone wolf solo entrepreneur, failing the way I did, taught me to see the line. I tripped over it and I slammed into it — hard lessons hurt. But picking myself back up, wiping off the dust, and finding those who will go with me beyond that line has been worth every step.
I can’t do it alone, and I now know I wouldn’t want to.
Daniel Roberts is a writer at Grain, a creative firm in Saint Louis, Missouri. He likes wolves.
