Hook, Line and Sinker

Undergraduate turned entrepreneur turns a class project into a product

Landon Hill ’21 didn’t view one of his last assignments as a UNCW student as homework, but as an opportunity. Former Cameron School of Business faculty member Xaver Neumeyer challenged students in his entrepreneurship analytics class to conceptualize a data-oriented business leveraging Wilmington as a coastal location.

A native of Greenville, NC, Hill worked for a local dive shop during his time at UNCW and spent a lot of time in Ocean Isle Beach.

“Most days I was fishing or doing some sort of activity related to the ocean. I would crew dive boats taking people to scuba dive, and had hopes for a career in fishing,” he said.

Combining his passion for marine life with his business education, the idea for a mobile app connecting local fishers to fresh seafood buyers was spawned that day in Neumeyer’s class.

Hill knows that commercial fishers are hard to find. “When it comes to fresh seafood, you must have buyers and sellers; just one won’t work. A lot of what’s out there is frozen and sits on a truck for who knows how long,” he said.

After graduation, Hill acquired his real estate license and was working in the field, but the idea of the app lured him back.

Hill had the idea and the passion and was in the right location but didn’t know how to code or develop the app, so he enlisted the help of Blue Tone Media, a Wilmington website and internet marketing company. In April 2022, Local Catch was launched.

Almost a full year later, Hill describes the time as one of dramatic growth. “We’ve had more than 50 app updates and have more than 500 users.” Currently Hill is a team of one but he hopes to hire a staff and interns – and sees UNCW as a source for both. He plans on traveling across the country to grow the app and its services. He spoke at the Cameron School of Business’ annual Business Week in March to share the lessons he’s learned going from undergraduate to entrepreneur.

Admitting that “the first step is terrifying, absolutely terrifying,” Hill wants to encourage students with business ideas to “not let them disappear because that first step is too daunting to take. It’s astonishing to watch something that grew inside your head become something that people enjoy using.”