We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful David Bishop. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with David below.
David, appreciate you joining us today. Are you happier as a creative? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job? Can you talk to us about how you think through these emotions?
I have been working in creative endeavors my entire career. My first and last “big job” working for others was designing Christmas ornaments for a California importer selling to large big-box stores. It was fast-paced, required extensive international travel, but was a lot of fun. I often think back to those days and how simple it was to show up and be creative, and not worry about making payroll, chasing sales, and all of the unrelenting operational challenges that afflict an owner.
I define working at a regular job as a steady paycheck with a focused job description.
David, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I am the CEO of Planet Import, Inc. and have been designing + manufacturing home and garden décor for over 20 years, selling to big box and large retail stores such as Costco, Home Depot, Lowes, Walmart, Target, Supervalu, HomeGoods, and more under our Habitudes™ brand. My passion for growing people with plants lead me to launch elevationlivingwalls.com as a design and build landscape construction company, with a focus on vertical gardens for residential and commercial projects, culminating this Spring 2023 with the installation of the largest outdoor venue living wall installation for the Adidas and Bad Bunny collaboration at the Coachella Valley Music Festival, which was featured in the Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, Harper’s Bazaar, and the Los Angeles Times among other media publications.
While I continue to design and sell home and garden couture to independent garden centers and distributors, my mission is to “Grow People with Plants.” Most energies are now focused on enlisting over a 1,000 peace-loving, plant people across the country on a mission to “connect people, plants, and the communities that surround us . .. Vertically.”
Have you ever had to pivot?
In or around 2016 our largest pottery distributor that represented over 75% of our sales filed for bankruptcy and cost us over $800,000. It was an enormous hit and I struggled hard to keep our business afloat. Sleepless nights and self doubt wrecked my personal life. During this calamity I had a chance meeting with a contractor through and industry contact who had a piece of land he was developing. We struck a deal and we began to build an incredible nursery in Irvine, CA. It had always been a dream of mine to create an amazing space that connected people to the garden where I could showcase my own collection of planters, furniture and home decor that was uniquely me. It was at the nursery that I met an inventor of a living wall system that set the direction for my next chapter. I began designing and building vertical gardens for clients in Orange County, California. We developed some incredible projects. Then 2020 brought us covid, which shut down not just us but the entire global enterprise. In the import business there are incredible lead times and from the time you commence a sale to deliver the product takes approximately 9 months to get paid. I knew instictively that by pivoting to living walls we could deliver local projects and get paid on the day of completion. So when the global pandemic was creating chaos for our import business I went full send on our construction business. I have always believed that fortune favors the industrious, and to each day keep improving and moving forward.
Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
There are several keys things that would’ve helped early had I known better and wasn’t stubbornly figuring it all out by myself. First among them is to find a mentor. There are a lot of older people who have successfully navigated their careers, learned from failures and victories and would be flattered by the opportunity to be helpful. Whether it is a local church, S.C.O.R.E. or other mentorship programs. Research people(s) you look up to and would like to emulate. Even better, make a list of your dream 100, and plot a course to meet them. My one dominant characteristic is that I am curious. I spend a lot of time reading and growing. There is so much to learn from and having a guide in your life will make a huge difference and open a lot of doors you would have never found on your own..
Contact Info:
- Website: www.elevationlivingwalls.com
- Instagram: elevationlivingwalls
- Facebook: elevationlivingwalls
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-bishop-7016225/
- Twitter: @plantvangelist
- Youtube: https://youtu.be/N_IDT9HbXPw?si=zH3GZT2Yv0DBcvS7
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/elevation-living-walls-lake-forest-2?osq=elevation+living