Started by Ryan, a former youth pastor in the Beaver area of Pittsburgh, Risen Fly Fishing exists to bring high quality fly fishing products to consumers at a much lower cost than its competitors. Starting with a few fishing items, Ryan built the product lines so that there exists today much fishing gear for customers. Furthermore, Ryan seeks to do entrepreneurship in a redemptive way; quoting the company’s website page, the venture exists to “put the customer first and reflect Him in all things.”

I stumbled across Risen Fly Fishing as I sincerely enjoy exploring different fly shops in the area of Pittsburgh. As I walked into the Risen store located in Beaver, PA, I was met by Ryan and I liked how personable he was towards me. He took thirty minutes of his time to help me learn the different fly fishing gear in his store.

Another reason why I love this venture is the intentional names with which Ryan names his product lines. As he seeks to represent the Kingdom of God in his business, Ryan names each of his fishing rods after different Biblical characters. As shown above, the Goliath rod is indeed named after Goliath himself; the rod is the largest of Risen’s production line. What an awesome way to incorporate Biblical characters which inevitably create opportunities to discuss Biblical literature.

In effort to put the customer first, Ryan also offers a deposit program which allows for customers to put down a small amount of money and pay the rest of the rod off as time follows. This allows customers to purchase expensive products at their convenience. In the fly fishing world, this proves to be an effective, differential way of catering to the customer’s needs.