{"id":300315,"date":"2026-06-08T19:23:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T19:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/300315\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T19:23:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T19:23:07","slug":"um-alumni-launch-second-hand-fishing-gear-marketplace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/300315\/","title":{"rendered":"UM Alumni launch second-hand fishing gear marketplace"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Colin Elliott, Dennis Lee and Kyle Elliott (from left to right) <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Three freshly graduated Herbert Business School alumni launched Second Catch, a second-hand fishing gear website, designed to give fishermen a specialized and secure online marketplace.<\/p>\n

Colin Elliott did not hang up his fishing rod when he moved from Boston, Massachusetts to study at University of Miami. Neither did his twin brother Kyle nor their close friend Dennis Lee, when they all decided to co-found Second Catch.<\/p>\n

Colin and Kyle\u2019s passion for fishing wasn\u2019t the only thing passed down through generations;so was most of their gear..<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just my dad handing down his gear from the 1980s,\u201d Colin Elliott said. \u201cIt was a family heirloom.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both the Elliotts and Lee were blue tuna fishermen from Massachusetts, a fact these three fishing enthusiasts discovered when they became suitmates in their freshman year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They teamed up to catch all the different fish species in Miami, but finding the right gear was an unexpected issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was always on Facebook Marketplace doomscrolling,\u201d Colin Elliott said. \u201cI was looking at this expensive gear and seeing if I could find something good quality, but not for $1,500.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to the hefty prices, most sellers were not verified. They frequently demanded to meet in person for the transaction, and Colin Elliott did not trust the process.<\/p>\n

That was how Second Catch was born. The idea struck during their semester abroad in Barcelona, their sophomore year. Immediately, the twins and Lee began doing research.<\/p>\n

Second Catch, a site \u201cfor fishermen by fishermen,\u201d allows users to sell or buy second-hand fishing gear. Using Stripe<\/a>\u2019s electronic payment services \u2014 which require people\u2019s Social Security numbers \u2014 sellers are verified and authorized to protect all members of these cashless transactions.<\/p>\n

A week after their \u201ccold launch\u201d, the company\u2019s challenge was to lure sellers away from Facebook and onto their site. The website design had been outsourced to specialists while the founders focused on promotion and networking.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Breaking into the fishing world required connections \u2014 some form of bait \u2014 and UM provided the founders with the perfect opportunity: UM\u2019s fishing club.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy junior year, they kind of disbanded the fishing club,\u201d Colin Elliott said. Without it, he had lost his connection to fishing.<\/p>\n

No executive board had been selected for the 2024-2025 year. Without leadership, the club was deemed inactive. Elliot took it upon himself to revive it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI made it the way I wished it was when I was younger,\u201d Elliot said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He established guest speakers, group activities and opportunities to connect with people who share similar interests. He and his brother remained part of the E-board until they graduated last month.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The fishing club gave them connections, while the Herbert Business School, where the founders studied finance, gave them the confidence to create Second Catch.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the entrepreneurship program [helped push] us to put ourselves out there if there was a problem that we thought we could solve and make better,\u201d Colin Elliott said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Becoming an entrepreneur, Colin Elliott noted with a smile, \u201cis risky,\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI know it\u2019s easy to get a salary and look for a job outside of being an entrepreneur,\u201d Colin Elliott said. \u201cAnd having something that\u2019s comfortable and you\u2019re just getting paid weekly and you know it\u2019s there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, he is hooked on starting his own venture.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really good to have something that [we] love and something that we want to do for the rest of our lives,\u201d Colin Elliott said, \u201cWhich is fishing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Second Catch will continue to evolve. The team is looking into local pickup as an alternative to shipping, while maintaining all transactions through the website to keep banking secure.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I can keep fishing the rest of my life and make some money doing it, that\u2019s the dream,\u201d Colin Elliott said. \u201cI mean, this is just the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Colin Elliott, Dennis Lee and Kyle Elliott (from left to right) \u00a0 Three freshly graduated Herbert Business School…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300316,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-300315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}