Should I look for a guild immediately? Or can I still poke a meager existence on my own
If you just want to survive, you basically just need to find food (which is easy and can be done solo easy).
But I would expect you'd want more than that.
So far I've been soloing, and it's tough, (because your stuff can get stolen, and you can be killed easily 2 or more vs 1, or kicked out from where you settled in), and frustrating (personnal claims don't work yet so on top of theft, every you build will decay), but from a weird point of view, it's reward too. If you don't mind the grind, since you will also have to level everything you need until you start trading.
I'm newer than you are to the game itself, and I still don't know if soloing is viable or not, but so far it's been ok for me.
Most people and probably the best advice is to group up.