I first was introduced to fly fishing when I was 11 years old. At a community event, the local Trout Unlimited chapter had a booth providing free casting lessons. I just found myself going back over and over again to get my cast down. I must have left and come back over 20 times making some odd excuse to pick the fly rod back up again. I attribute my love for fly fishing to this exact occasion. These men are now some of my closest friends and have guided me through life. They inspired me to do the same for others as they did for me.

Fast forward 7 years, I was sitting streamside observing a winter midge hatch when I decided to go for it — to start a fly fishing company. I was a freshman in college studying Business Management at the Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, so I couldn't afford to take out a loan to get a jumpstart.

I had no idea how much it would cost to start and grow a business, but I threw my entire life savings and net worth — at the time — into the pot. I invested $6,500 to form NET Services, LLC doing business as The Fly Crate.

We launched our bootstrapped website to a small group of 34 email subscribers and a social media reach of around 2,100 fly anglers — impressive right? As expected, the business was slow for the first few months as we received a half dozen orders each month.

In college, I was notorious for showing up late to class, working during class hours on my laptop, and turning in assignments late — thankfully, I had professors who understood where my ambitions lie.

Surely but steadily, after many all-nighters traffic to theflycrate.com grew from 100 visitors a month...to 100 visitors a week...to 100 visitors a day. That's when we really noticed the orders starting to come in on a regular basis. Up to this point, I never took a paycheck from The Fly Crate and invested every dollar back in to add more variety, build a resource center, and fund a podcast.

And the rest is history! Built from the closet of my college dorm room to a thriving community of fly anglers. The Fly Crate is and has always been about creating a community around a singular brand. It is never our first intention to sell products at every turn. Instead, we try to build a relationship with each member and visitor. To that extent, we've succeeded many times over with many members supporting us from the first day The Fly Crate launched.

Thank you for helping The Fly Crate become one of the greatest places to learn and shop.