Margaret Wolfson is the founder of River + Wolf, a New York City branding firm. Prior to starting up, Wolfson was a performer, gracing stages from the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., to remote parts of the Philippines. For decades while traveling the globe, she worked as a freelance branding consultant and wrote children’s books. But eventually, she sought a more rooted lifestyle, and entrepreneurship offered her that.
Using profits from a book collaboration, Wolfson launched River + Wolf in 2014. But she struggled early on to pull in an online audience — a problem she fixed by improving her company’s internet search results rankings. Today, her firm is easily found, on solid ground and focused on reaching key revenue benchmarks. Wolfson tends “not to make long-term goals,” she says. “I trust the process. I trust that one thing will lead organically to the next.” However, she does have one dream out on the horizon: coaching future business owners, women in particular.
Being a business owner has given Wolfson the economic freedom to try many new things, she says — for example, traveling recreationally and scuba diving. But more importantly, entrepreneurship has shown her what she’s capable of. Business owners are “simultaneously carving and walking the path,” she says, and meeting those challenges successfully has sent her self-confidence soaring. “At its heart, entrepreneurship has provided me with the chances to become more comfortable with uncertainty.”