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“The big idea is simple. There’s a mountain of good gear sitting unused, and if we can keep it in play and turn some of that value into support for water conservation and getting more kids fishing, that’s something we feel good about building.”
So says Ignacio Vial, the co-founder of the Recast second-hand reselling app which now has an additional dimension helping brands clear tackle that is left in limbo after their pros have used it. Here, Vial explains the thinking behind the Recast Steward function and its advantages for tackle brands, including raising funds for sustainability causes.
Pros also win by taking a cut of re-sold gear they no longer use. “If you’re a pro and your gear cupboard has a few stories in it, we’d genuinely love to hear from you,” says Vial.
Recast is the app for buying and selling second-hand tackle, but it will now also help brands solve two classic problems with stock. Can you explain?
IG: Honestly, we came at this as a marketplace first, and it was brands who pointed the second part out to us. The gear a brand gives its pros only works once. You spend real money getting your team on your newest kit, then the season ends and that gear just disappears into a garage or a Facebook group. You get nothing back from it, and none of it ever shows up in a report. What we can do is give that same gear a second life. The pros stay on your kit, and whatever they don’t keep cycles back through Recast, so it turns into recovered value, money for a good cause and a real number you can put in front of your sustainability team. Same gear, same budget, we just help it do a bit more.
You introduced Steward for the first time at ICAST. Why were brands so receptive?
I think because we weren’t asking them for anything. No new spend, nothing to sign. Every brand there already runs a pro program and already loses the gear once it’s out the door, so we weren’t adding a cost, we were just saying the budget you already spend could do more. And the resale side underneath it is already running in five markets, so it wasn’t a pitch. We were a bit taken aback by how warm people were, to be honest.
It’s a promise to take away pain, but there are big benefits for brands too. What are they?
A few, and we’re still learning which ones land hardest. Your pros end up happier, they’re on newer kit more often and they’ve got an honest way to move what they are done with, with a share of anything that sells. Your brand’s marketing is now boosted by gear that carries a story, the pro’s name and where it’s been, which tends to sell for more than a plain used rod. And your sustainability people get real data on what stayed in use and what got recovered, and they didn’t have to pay to create it. That last one is the part we are most excited about, because it feeds straight into ESG work that usually just costs money.
How is this different and better than what’s out there already?
Two honest answers. Most of what exists is either a discount portal for pros or a brand quietly running its own resale. We are neither. We don’t make tackle and we never will, and oddly that’s our biggest advantage, because a brand will trust its gear to someone neutral in a way it won’t trust a rival. The other thing is that the hard part was never the reselling, it’s everything around it. Escrow, shipping, grading, disputes, verified buyers across five countries. That took real work, and it’s already built as part of Recast. We’re not claiming to have the brand side all figured out. We’ve done the boring, hard plumbing, and we’re learning the rest with the people using it.
What types of brands benefit the most?
Brands with an active roster of pros or testers and with gear that holds its value. Rods, reels, electronics, the stuff anglers actually keep and pay for used. Bait and line don’t really fit, and that’s fine. Really, it comes down to brands that care where their gear ends up, want to be able to show it, and like the idea of it supporting causes that matter to them.
How close are you to going live?
We’ve just wrapped up development and we’ll be live with early pilots in Q4. We have made the pilot as light as we can, on purpose, so there’s nothing to wait around for. We do the first one by hand, on gear that’s already out with a brand’s pros, under whatever setup they’ve got today. Nothing signed, nothing changed.
How long does onboarding take and how should brands prepare?
For the pilot, almost nothing on their end. To go further, you just tell us which gear goes in and point us at a cause you’d like to support, then send over a simple list of the gear. A spreadsheet is fine. Easiest thing is to start with one gear type and see how it feels.
Do you also want to hear from pro anglers? How do they benefit?
Yes, please. The pros are really the whole thing. If they don’t want it, it doesn’t work. They get on newer kit more often, they get an honest way to pass on gear they’re finished with instead of selling it quietly themselves, and they take a share of whatever it sells for. And they always keep what they love, they just ask. If you’re a pro and your gear cupboard has a few stories in it, we’d genuinely love to hear from you.
This shows the flexibility of the Recast app. Do you welcome more enquiries from brands on their specific stock challenges?
Definitely, and honestly that’s how we want to build it. We know cross-border resale really well. How your specific programme works, we don’t yet, and we’re not going to pretend otherwise. The first few partners are going to shape this with us. If you’ve got a stock headache that doesn’t quite fit what we’ve built, tell us. We’d rather bend the thing to fit than sell you something that doesn’t.
Any other messages to brands who haven’t talked to you yet?
Just that a first chat costs you nothing, because the pilot runs on gear you’ve already given away or comped. You’re not putting up budget or signing anything to find out if it’s useful. And we really love working with people who care about the same things we do, keeping gear in use, protecting the water, getting more kids into fishing. If that’s you, come say hi.
What’s the medium-term vision? For 12 months and in five years?
In a year, Steward up and running with a few brands, the marketplace underneath it getting deeper across our five markets in the EU plus the US, and Recast becoming a natural place for a serious angler to buy and sell used tackle. In five years, we’d love to be the circular layer for the whole category, the neutral standard that brands use to keep gear in use and report on it. And a real source of support for the non-profits doing water conservation and youth angling work. That’s the part that gets us out of bed, honestly. The business only really matters to us if it’s putting something back into the water and the community.
Want to open up discussions? Contact Recast here: founders@recast.market
