Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Bryan Ramos. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Bryan, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How do you feel about asking friends and family to support your business? What’s appropriate, what’s not? Where do you draw the line?

The support that comes from those closest to you is super critical in the early growth stages of your business. Support comes in many forms and frequencies, and you should accept all of it. Often, we expect huge support from friends and family automatically, but the smallest gestures of support should always count too. Even if it’s sharing your business or brand once, you never know what big opportunity can come from it. In reality, you shouldn’t expect anything from anyone. Most of your consistent support often comes from individuals you have never met or who aren’t close to you. If you aren’t receiving the support you expect from your friends and family, never let it discourage you. Your support will come from the work you put in.

In my case, I have been blessed with support in all forms from my friends and family for both my apparel printing business and my fishing brand. This support has played an important role in the growth of my businesses. The smallest amount of support goes a long way, and I appreciate all of it. When it comes to support, my philosophy on the topic is not to expect anything from anyone, and no one owes you anything. This allows you to not hold anything against friends and family who show a lack of support.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My creative spirit started at a young age, having been raised in a family passionate about music, art, and creativity. It was all around me growing up, with influences coming from my Brazilian heritage. On the entrepreneurial side, my grandfather owned and ran two successful automotive shops in Brazil before embarking on the journey for the “American Dream.” This led me to be raised in an environment where creativity and hard work were two of the main attributes, which would go on to shape me into what I am today. After moving to South Florida from my birth state of New Jersey when I was 9, I started seeing my favorite childhood toy cars come to life. What I mean is that we would see Ferrari’s, Lamborghini’s, and other exotic cars regularly. This is a significant part of my story because it is most likely the main motivator that sparked something in me. Not only was I obsessed with toy cars at a young age, but I also gained an obsession with DuPont Registry magazines, which are catalogs of exotic cars for sale. I believe this magazine was what sparked my interest in money. Of course, when you are young, you don’t understand that those luxuries are just materialistic possessions. But we all have different motivators that drive us until we gain understanding. My entrepreneurial spirit began to emerge in middle school. Whether this spirit is DNA or self-motivated, I’m not too sure. This spark led me to start hustling Jolly Rancher lollipops to my classmates in middle school. On the weekends, I would also walk around my neighborhood with a bucket and car cleaning materials to wash my neighbor’s cars for $20. In the summer, I would sacrifice vacation time with my friends to work with my dad and uncles, cleaning pools in the blazing Florida heat. This was the work ethic I had at a young age, even before I was of legal working age.

Although I had that entrepreneurial mindset at a young age, I ended up falling into the 9-5 trap after not having any plans on attending college. This led me to many years of living in a state of comfort, falling into bad social and financial habits, as well as suppressing my creativity and entrepreneurial mind. This set me back a few years, but everything happens for a reason; everyone’s journey is different. During this time, on several occasions, I did attempt to either get an education in a career field I was interested in or create business ideas. None of these attempts ever stuck or became successful, but they were still important lessons in my journey. Through all this, I never lost hope or got discouraged from making my dreams a reality and building a business based on my passions. I just needed to find myself again.

In 2016, two years into my construction job, I started shifting my mindset toward pursuing my dreams again. The only issue was that I had no idea or plan for what I wanted to do. This was due to the fact that my life had just become routine at that point; I had lost my identity in some way. This also led me to struggle with mental health issues during this period. I was wrestling with the idea of building my own business but had no clue what I wanted to do or how I was going to do it. At some point, I started to dig deep inside again. What were my true passions? I had to ask myself. It might have been through several conversations with my brother, Shane Hunter, about our shared passion for graffiti during our high school years that things started to come back to me. Art and creativity were what I needed to get back to. Being in a creative environment was what I had been missing out on for years. In the pursuit of figuring out my next move, I stumbled across the art of screen printing on t-shirts. This craft immediately caught my attention. As I did more research on the process of screen printing, I fell more in love with the idea of it becoming a potential business venture where I had the opportunity to exercise my creativity. Screen printing blended two of my interests, which are art and clothing. After a few months of research and becoming obsessed with the screen printing world, I decided it was what I wanted to take my next shot at.

Now that I had a clear goal, I was focused and determined to make the screen printing business happen. I ended up making a big investment in screen-printing equipment shortly after. I had purchased most of the equipment required to run the operation, but I was still missing a few key pieces to complete the setup. During this time, I ended up struggling to acquire the remaining equipment I needed to build the business. I ended up facing financial struggles and ran into a few obstacles during this time, which didn’t allow me to purchase the remaining equipment. This delay in my pursuit pushed me back to a place where I had to deal with mental health issues once again. Still, I never lost hope or got discouraged. Fast forward to 2019, and now, 6 years into my construction job, I had to dig deep once again. The routine remained the same, and I never got the opportunity to build that dream business. I never gave up on it, though. I was still set on these dreams, even though the years passed by and my equipment sat collecting dust. The turning point was rediscovering and reconnecting with another childhood passion of mine, which was fishing.

Growing up in Florida, fishing was one of the activities that you did at least once as a kid with your family or friends. Living in a neighborhood with a big lake and surrounded by canals, I would always be fishing with my friends and even by myself at times. Eventually, this hobby that I loved also became non-existent once I started getting into my teenage years and my interests started to change. Moving forward to 2019, the construction job is starting to take a toll on me, both physically and mentally. My life was just going to work, coming home, sleeping, and repeat. I felt a strong need to break this cycle. That is when I ended up reconnecting with this fishing passion I had as a kid. This came after one afternoon when I got home from work and took my dogs out in the backyard. We had a small canal that ran right across my backyard, and on this day I spotted a beautiful butterfly peacock bass aggressively chasing bait in the crystal clear water. I was instantly curious, as I had never caught one before. Catching this fish ended up becoming my mission. I dove all into re-learning the sport of fishing. In April of 2019, I caught my first fish after many years of not fishing. I was instantly hooked and became super obsessed, fishing every single day after work. If you are wondering what does this have to do with business or creativity, I promise it will make sense in the end.

With this new obsession with fishing, I started getting deeper into the culture and lifestyle. Because I also love apparel and style, my clothing choices also started to change. I wanted to feel like I was part of this lifestyle, even though I had only been fishing consistently for a couple of months. What I didn’t know was that the fishing apparel brands I was purchasing didn’t represent the style of fishing I was a part of. Once I realized this, I started searching for brands that represented the style of fishing I was doing, which is a subculture called urban fishing. I quickly found out that there was no such brand in existence, even with its huge popularity. This is when another spark lit inside my head and heart. I wanted to wear something that represented me with designs that were different from the normal fishing aesthetic. My goal of starting my apparel printing business remained strong. I figured if I’m still pursuing this dream of printing apparel, why not also start my own brand dedicated to the urban fishing lifestyle? As I stayed consistent and learned more about urban fishing, this desire to start a fishing brand representing urban fishermen kept growing stronger. It wasn’t until 2020, while lifting heavy 5/8 drywall sheets during a 100-degree Florida summer, that a name popped up in my head. I remember repeating it over and over in my head and smiling to myself after I realized that was the name I would run with. Urban Fishing Outlaws.

2021 comes around, and it’s time to put my new ideas into motion. The first step I took was to come up with a cool logo and design for my new brand, Urban Fishing Outlaws. I commissioned this task for two great artists whom I had been following for a while and whose styles fit the aesthetic I had envisioned. Baatr was responsible for the logo design, and Andreas Damas created my first designs. That would be the starting point and building block for UFO. My whole idea behind Urban Fishing Outlaws was to take streetwear style and fuse it with fishing culture. Now that I have these designs ready to go, my next step would be getting them printed on apparel. The only issue was that I was still nowhere near having the funds to complete my screen printing setup or rent a space to open a shop. This is when I stumbled across DTF printing. This discovery would turn out to be a game-changer for me. This new apparel printing technology would allow me to print apparel with full color and detailed design using just a heat press. This meant I could set up a small space with only a heat press and start printing and getting my ideas out there. As I did my research on this style of apparel printing, I ended up first investing in a hat press with the help of my wife, who had always supported my ideas since day one. This also birthed Techneq Print Studio.

Techneq Print Studio was the dream that started in 2016. Although it didn’t happen exactly as planned with traditional screen printing, the goal remained the same: to provide quality apparel printing services for small businesses and brands in my community. It was all finally coming together with my apparel brand and print company, which I had been dreaming about for several years. Shortly after the hat press purchase, I invested in a quality heat press to complete my printing setup. At the end of 2021, I made the decision that I would walk away from my career in the construction field after a hard and long eight years in the trenches. I made this decision, gambling on myself, to build what I had been dreaming of for many years. December 2021 would be the last time I would lace my boots and watch fresh-cut drywall dust vanish with the fresh air. In the beginning of 2022, I finally began breathing in new fresh air. I started promoting Techneq and accepting clients. Printing jobs quickly started coming in. The support of friends and family spreading the word about my new business venture was also a key part. After all those years in this crazy pursuit, I was finally in my element, free of mental issues, creating and building my businesses. The goal was to grow Techneq Print Studio and Urban Fishing Oultaws side by side. In 2023, I launched my first full collection for UFO and finally brought my vision to life. The urban fishing community now has a brand that represents us and that they can wear proudly.

This is just the beginning of my new journey. I’m still learning every single day about both my printing business, my brand, and entrepreneurship in general. I am very blessed that I have been able to work with some very cool clients in this short amount of time in business. I have the honor of working with one of the best Grammy-nominated recording studios in Miami. I also had a huge opportunity to work with Phantasy Kolors out of Seattle and Rauh-Welt Begriff, a legendary Porsche tuning company from Japan. These are just a few examples of the amazing clients I have had the pleasure of working with and helping their vision come to life. This is my passion: helping others put their ideas on garments, whether it be for a brand or business. Quality and exceptional customer service are always my top priorities. I look forward to continuing to build and helping others along their journey.

I hope my story inspires someone who might feel stuck or struggling with not being able to pursue their true passion. There is no set time for success; everyone’s success comes at a different time. As long as you keep heading forward towards your goals, the opportunities will come. Never lose hope, and keep grinding.

How did you build your audience on social media?

Building your social media audience is super important for your brand or business in today’s world. I knew this would be a major key if I wanted to build a successful fishing brand. Since my brand caters to urban fishermen, I started building my audience by sharing photos and highlighting local fishermen who share the same passion on my brand page. This came before I ever released any products for sale under Urban Fishing Outlaws. I wanted to start building a core audience so that when I was ready to release my first collection, I already had a solid group of fishermen who understood the vision. This method of giving the spotlight to those within your community is a free and effective way to gain some traction while building your audience. Although this method might not work for all business models, it is important that, whatever your business is, you share and post relevant content about it as frequently as possible. Another very effective tool to help grow your audience is hashtags. I have been a huge proponent of using effective hashtags to connect with other like-minded individuals who might be interested in your business or brand. All tools provided on social media platforms should be used to help you grow your audience, from story posts to reel posts, etc. Now my social media account not only highlights urban anglers, but we also share my fishing fam who are rocking UFO apparel.

How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?

Being a part of your community or culture will help you stay connected to your clients and foster brand loyalty. You want to be approachable and easily relatable so that your clients feel like you are just like them. In my opinion, being kind and showing your appreciation for those who are loyal will create strong loyalty. Social media is the main platform that I use to keep in touch with clients, or, as I like to call them, family members. You can connect on a more personal level when you connect with someone over social media versus email or other methods since most of us live on these platforms. I have gone as far as meeting the supporters of Urban Fishing Outlaws in person and having a fishing session with them.

Contact Info:

• Website: WWW.URBANFISHINGOUTLAWS.COM
• Instagram: @bryvn.rvmos
• Other: www.techneqprintstudio.com @techneqprintstudio @urbanfishingoutlaws