Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Joshua Larson. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Joshua, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

As a child I was always creating, inventing, failing, and trying new things. I was always rearranging my spaces, my families spaces (often without their knowledge) and I had a passion to explore. As an adult those sentiments have continued. I continue to explore and engage in the people and things around me. I remember a quote from a book I have always admired that states, “…and the walls became the world all around” from Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. The idea that you can create the world in which you live by what you place around you has always been on the forefront of my existence. I thought this was profound. Whether you surround yourself by specific people or things, those things affect who you are and how people perceive you. It also helps you define who you are as an individual. This is so incredibly powerful and influential.

The style of the items that we search for would likely be called WILD but some. We are wild thing searchers, finders, buyers, sellers, keepers, hoarders, collectors, admirers. We like anything old, anything funky, anything modern, anything wild, anything odd. In our world, when we find something out and about, collectors use the phrase “we found it in the wild”. It became obvious when we were naming our business that there was an obvious trend, thus WILD THINGS was formed and has since taken on a life of its own.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Joshua Larson and I am a serial creative, thinker, entrepreneur. My husband and I have always loved to thrift, antique and spend time finding new things for our home. His name is David Wenzel. His family had an antique shop growing up so he was raised flipping antiques. When we met and starting dating we found ourselves often in antique malls and vintage shops enjoying each others company. At one point I asked David if he wanted to have a space in an antique mall and he was ecstatic. It then snowballed into markets and when enough people asked if we had a storefront or brick-and-mortar we finally gave in and considered. We then opened a storefront and haven’t looked back. Since we have added an antique mall in our space called the Wild Vintage Collective with 40+ dealers that buy and resell vintage and antiques. We have most recently added a coffee shop in the space call The Clapping Monkey House of Coffee. It is an oasis of its own.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Our philosophy has always been to let things happen as they may. If it is not fun anymore, then we just don’t do it. There have been several instances where we try to force ideas r relationships with potential business outlets, but the forced attempts fail almost inevitably. When you do good things and open your heart and your world to positive things, in our experience, it usually will just present itself. This is not always at times in your business or life that seem ideal, but if you trust in the brand and business you’ve created it will be seamless and good and happy things will just find you.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Our business prospered through a move across country and through COVID epidemic and I think in large part because of front end planning. We decided right away when starting our business that we would have everything in our antique and vintage shop online and shippable across the world. This really has strengthened out customer base and has allowed us to pivot in difficult times when in person shopping hasn’t been feasible or best practice.

Contact Info:

• Website: wildthingsarehere.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/wildthingsantiques
• Facebook: facebook.com/wildthingsantiques