This week on The Mobile Alabama Business Podcast, we sit down with Eva Ramos. Listen in as we discuss her life, career journey, and how she got into the world of adventure!

Produced by Blue Fish.

Transcript:

Eva Ramos:

My name is Eva Ramos and I'm the owner of Pure Aloha Adventures.

Marcus Neto:

Yay! All the way from Hawaii. She swam on her paddleboard-

Eva Ramos:

Yes.

Marcus Neto:

... today, so... Well, welcome to the podcast.

Eva Ramos:

Thank you.

Marcus Neto:

Yeah.

Eva Ramos:

Good to be here.

Marcus Neto:

No, I'm glad you could be here. I know we tried to schedule this for a couple of weeks ago, but I know how that goes. It was a beautiful day and clients were calling, so I'm glad we were able to get you in.

Eva Ramos:

Yes.

Marcus Neto:

So to get started, we typically ask a little bit about the backstory of our guests. So, tell us the story of Eva. Where are you from? Where'd you go to high school? Did you go to college? What'd you study, if you did? Are you married? Just kind of give us some backstory about who you are.

Eva Ramos:

Yeah. So, I was born in Puerto Rico, hence the brown skin, contrary to popular belief, I am not Hawaiian. So, I grew up most of my life in Indiana. And when I graduated high school, I moved to Dallas. I lived there for eight years. I attempted college a couple of times, and just wasn't really my jam. I just was bartending and waiting tables. And then in 2008, the economy crashed and nobody could really find a job. So I picked up, I sold everything I own, and moved to Hawaii. And thought, "Hey, it'll be cool if I get to live in Hawaii for a year of my life."

Eva Ramos:

12 years later, and many different jobs, scuba instructor, bartender, waitress, and then finally I opened Pure Aloha Adventures in 2014, and did that until March of 2020. We all-

Marcus Neto:

Yeah.

Eva Ramos:

... know what happened then.

Marcus Neto:

Yeah. Dun, dun, dun! [crosstalk 00:01:41]

Eva Ramos:

Yep. Yep. So, had some friends living here in Spanish Fort and they said, "We have a big house out here. Come stay with us, if you want to leave Hawaii." Very thankful for them. They had mentioned that there's not really anybody doing what I do down here, as far as the paddle boarding and the paddle boarding lessons. And they said, "We think it'd be a great fit." And sure enough, I'm loving it.

Marcus Neto:

Yeah. I know-

Eva Ramos:

Sweet Home, Alabama.

Marcus Neto:

I know, we were talking about the water clarity isn't what you would find in Hawaii, by any stretch of the imagination. But I mean, it's beautiful here. It really is.

Eva Ramos:

It is beautiful.

Marcus Neto:

I mean, I always tell people... Because I am a beach person, don't care about the mountains, couldn't give a rat's ass about the Plains of this great country. I want to be on the coast with my feet in the sand or on an island somewhere, just enjoying myself. And the thing that I... Because I've been on... I lived forever on the east coast, visited the west coast, but there's just something about the beaches on the Gulf coast that are very fascinating to me. Unlike Hawaii, we don't have any waves-

Eva Ramos:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Marcus Neto:

... which I would imagine, helps you with what you're doing.

Eva Ramos:

Definitely helps, yes. But there is a lot of wind here so...

Marcus Neto:

Yeah, there's a lot of wind. And then, the beaches or the sand on the beaches, are some of the best in the world.

Eva Ramos:

Yes, I would agree with that.

Marcus Neto:

Especially as you kind of get... I'm not going to necessarily say like... I mean, the closer you get to Mississippi and Louisiana, the worse it gets, but the closer you get to the armpit of Florida, the better it gets. So, some of the finest beaches in the world are Destin and Navarre and all those. And the water clarity is excellent over there as well, so... But anyway, I just think it's interesting that you started a paddle boarding company here, right now.

Marcus Neto:

And I don't know how much you know about this, but I'm involved with the chamber. I'm on the Board of Directors. Ecotourism is set to explode here.

Eva Ramos:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Marcus Neto:

And it's all I'm hearing about, over and over. The natural resources that we have, the capabilities of us to kind of turn just everything from the Delta down into stuff that people can come and experience because there's no other... What's the word I'm looking for? There's no other place like this in the world, is what they're kind of saying. But anyway...

Eva Ramos:

Yeah. And it's definitely a need down here. I mean, there is a huge community that is wrapped around boating down here, jet skiing, pontoons, things like that. But these human powered adventures, kayaking, there are some people doing kayaking, paddle boarding, things like that, it's really needed, because people want to get out. Especially after last year, people want to get out, they want to experience the water and exercise and be outdoors.

Eva Ramos:

And it's a perfect time to kind of start a business like this. And I'm very thankful to be in an area where there is opportunity for growth, because you go to some places like Destin and you're competing with 50 other companies that do the same exact thing. So, I'm real excited to kind of help be a part of that. And anything that I can do to be a part of the chamber or-

Marcus Neto:

Well, be careful what you ask for. Yeah.

Eva Ramos:

... get involved with stuff like that.

Marcus Neto:

I'm going to sell her a membership before she leaves, folks.

Eva Ramos:

Yeah. Well, I've thought about it anyway.

Marcus Neto:

Well, I know. I mean, we can talk about that offline, but I just... I do think, because I don't think people in the... Listen, the whole purpose of this podcast is not just to shine a light on what you're doing. Right? As the business owner that is expanding and doing cool things in our economy. But the other thing too, is just kind of help people understand, just in general, that are listening to this, what it is that the leadership of that area's looking at. And what they see, what's coming down the pike. And ecotourism is definitely, definitely on everybody's radar right now. So that, and cultural tourism, especially with the Clotilda coming in and some of the things that are happening there, but we digress. What was your first job?

Eva Ramos:

My first job, I worked at a little... it was almost kind of like a Walgreen's in Indiana. And just kind of had to work for anything that I wanted my whole life, whether it was just growing up as a kid doing chores. If I wanted something, I had to work for it. And that was instilled in me very, very young. So, I've always kind of had a good work ethic, whether it was that first job or the second job was flipping burgers at McDonald's, and I worked that. And you just... You have to work. Nothing's going to be handed to you in this life, so...

Marcus Neto:

Well, the follow on to that question is, are there any lessons that you still remember from it? And it sounds like your lesson was, if there's anything that you want in life, you're going to have to work for it. But I mean, is there anything else that you took away from those experiences?

Eva Ramos:

Yeah. I mean, that's pretty much it. I think that, not everybody is blessed with a family that has a lot of money, and so we have to kind of work for what we want. And nobody's going to give it to us, so if you want something, you got to go out and get it and earn it and figure out how to do things better, so you can better yourself.

Marcus Neto:

Sure.

Eva Ramos:

And it doesn't always have to be school. Everything you can learn on the internet now, so you can go to the University of Google and learn anything about anything and figure out how to do whatever you want.

Marcus Neto:

For sure. It just takes a little bit of research and a little bit of time. Well, tell us... I mean, you kind of gave us some aspects of starting the business, but I mean, I'm sure there was more to it than just what you've outlined so far. So, I mean, how did you start the business? And share with us, a little bit of what it was like, starting that business in Hawaii and then maybe what you've experienced here in lower Alabama.

Eva Ramos:

Yeah. So in Hawaii, it was a little bit easier. Everybody knows about ecotourism there. Everything is, you just go to the permit office and you get your permits. And if you can pay the fees and if you can pay the tons of money in taxes that they want, they're going to give you a permit. So, back in 2012, I was just waiting tables and bartending, and I was just kind of sick of it. I wanted to do something else. I was big into scuba diving at the time, so I became a scuba instructor. Worked for a company for a while and then decided I wanted to start my own company.

Eva Ramos:

Little did I know, how much overhead there is with scuba diving. So, I kind of tried to think outside the box of what else I could do. And so, I decided to do paddle boarding. And at the time, paddle boarding wasn't really lucrative. It was kind of just getting big. People were just starting to learn about it. So again, you kind of learn as you go, and so I had to think of something else.

Eva Ramos:

So then I started doing snorkel tours and that was really my bread and butter, over in Hawaii. So, I was very blessed to have a permit to work out at the Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve. So, I could take beginner snorkelers. We would just go from the shore. You don't even need a boat. And I would just show these people these fish in about waist deep water, and they loved it. And so, I started really focusing on that, because that was where the money was coming in. And then, once I built that enough to where I could hire somebody for that, then I started doing more of the paddle boarding tours and kind of pushing that. But at least I had the money coming in from the snorkel tours to support the other thing.

Eva Ramos:

Business was booming. It was great. And then March 2020 hit, and Hanauma Bay was the first thing to shut down. And it was the last thing to reopen. Hawaii kind of shut down all their tourism, and I had to make a choice. I had to decide, am I going to stay here? And am I going to blow through the savings that I have? And am I going to hope that Hanauma Bay reopens and hope that this business can get restarted? Or am I going to cut my losses and move on? And so, I sold everything I owned, again, and sold all the paddle boards and decided it was time for a change.

Eva Ramos:

So, I moved down here. I hit a ton of walls down here. Again, going back to the eco-tourism side of things, people just don't get it down here yet. And I approached every single marina. I approached every single city office, county office. Everybody told me, "No." They did not want me in the marinas because of all the boat traffic. They did not want me off of the city parks because they didn't want any commercial activity off their city parks. So I was told, "No", probably by 50 different people.

Marcus Neto:

Wow.

Eva Ramos:

And most people would've given up. I'm kind of one of those people that, I don't like to be told, "No", and so, I'm going to figure out how to do it. And I just kept emailing different people and going different routes. And finally, I was able to obtain a permit for Dolphin Island. They were a little bit more open to it. And then the Gulf State Park reached out to me, after about eight months.

Marcus Neto:

Yeah.

Eva Ramos:

And so, the permitting situation was a lot harder here. It's real easy here, to go get a business license. It's real hard to get a permit, when you're not a brick and mortar store.

Marcus Neto:

Well, that's... I mean, this is good information to have because... And I don't know where this goes, but I'd like to kind of introduce you to some people and let you give your experience to them. Because if we really are serious about ecotourism, then we need to figure that stuff out, because we can't just hope that it happens. And if we're going to foster that, then we need to make sure that there are, well, I don't know, entry points into the ecosystem that we're allowing people to use, that allow them to do the job that they want to do.

Eva Ramos:

Yeah-

Marcus Neto:

I mean-

Eva Ramos:

... absolutely. In Hawaii, you can get a permit and you don't have to have a brick and mortar. You just get the beach permit and you pay the fees and then they allow you, as long as you're insured... You have to hold a lot of insurance, which I do. And then they just allow you to go. And here, they don't want that yet. I think, like you said, they're kind of starting to think about it. People like me are kind of getting in their minds a little bit like-

Marcus Neto:

Yeah, for sure.

Eva Ramos:

... "Hey, wow. That is a good thing to offer here." And I know some of the yoga girls are trying to do it out at the Gulf State Park as well. They're trying to do outdoor yoga and outdoor fitness, which is also another thing that's just booming right now. So anything that's outdoors that people can get out and get a workout in, it's needed in this area.

Marcus Neto:

Yeah. For sure.

Eva Ramos:

Yeah.

Marcus Neto:

Yeah. We need to foster that. If you were talking to someone who wanted to get started in running their own business, what's the one bit of wisdom that you would impart to them?

Eva Ramos:

I would just say, that you're never going to be ready. And it's kind of... you can think about it as maybe, starting a family or buying a home. There's no perfect time for it, you just got to start. And if it were me back in the day, I would have started sooner. You have to... You're never going to be ready. You're never going to know everything, and you have to just start somewhere. And then, learn as you grow and grow as you learn.

Marcus Neto:

Yep. Absolutely. I love that because I think everybody feels like they have to have some degree or some education, or they have to have this, that, and the other thing. And it's like, nope, not really. All you have to do is, you have to have the tenacity.

Eva Ramos:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Marcus Neto:

You have to have a dream. Right? And you have to have an expectation that there's something that's bigger out there that you're supposed to be doing.

Eva Ramos:

Absolutely.

Marcus Neto:

If you have those [crosstalk 00:13:29] things...

Eva Ramos:

And you have to love what you're doing.

Marcus Neto:

Yeah. I don't even argue, you don't have to love what you're doing, because there are plenty of people that start businesses that they don't love what it is that they're doing, but they they're doing it for reasons that are important to them. And so, I mean, I get what you're saying, because I very much enjoy what I do. I'm sure you do as well, and so, that helps.

Eva Ramos:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Marcus Neto:

But I mean, I think you really do have to have the tenacity, the grit, you have to have a dream, and you have to really kind of believe that this is something that you're supposed to do. Otherwise, why do it?

Eva Ramos:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Marcus Neto:

Who's the one person that you look to in the business world, or maybe even just in the ecotourism world, that's really doing some cool things that you look up to?

Eva Ramos:

Well, I listen to a lot of podcasts, so I listen to a lot of people who are doing great things, just with their mindset and mindset training. She's a little Pollyanna, but I love Rachel Hollis.

Marcus Neto:

Okay.

Eva Ramos:

She's just very much about living her best life and kind of putting your best foot forward. Steven Bartlett is a great podcast, I also listen to. He's more on the business side of things, so I don't have a lot of people, especially in this new environment that I'm in, that I can go and talk to. So, I have to find my knowledge elsewhere. And podcasts, and I read a lot of blogs in my industry and also blogs about Google and blogs about social media marketing. So you can find the information out there, even if you don't have the people in your immediate circle.

Marcus Neto:

For sure. No, it's... You mentioned podcasts, so I'll rephrase the next question, because I normally ask any books, podcasts, people, or organizations, but I'm going to take podcasts off the docket. So any books, people, or organizations that have been helpful in moving you forward?

Eva Ramos:

Do these have to be people that I personally know?

Marcus Neto:

No, no.

Eva Ramos:

Okay.

Marcus Neto:

It's an open-ended question for a reason.

Eva Ramos:

Gosh, I don't read a lot of books so... I just don't have the time. So I would say, just organizations, I follow... For instance, FareHarbor is my booking platform that everybody books their tours through. So, I follow everything that they do because they are top of the game in everything. So you have to find what's in your niche.

Marcus Neto:

Yeah.

Eva Ramos:

Conferences, Arival conferences, Salesforce conferences. I enjoy going to those just to learn. It might not even be about my industry, but you might learn something. So anything you can do to get more knowledge.

Marcus Neto:

Yeah. I always tell people, when you go to a conference, if you can walk away with one thing, then it makes the whole conference... Unless it's a really expensive conference, and then two things.

Eva Ramos:

Yeah. Well, they're all expensive.

Marcus Neto:

Yeah, they are. Tell me about it. It's funny because the conferences themselves are never the expensive part. It's always the stuff that you have to do in order to be at the conference.

Eva Ramos:

Yeah.

Marcus Neto:

It's the hotel, the airfare, all that stuff. But you mentioned a couple of podcasts, and I think it's interesting because I'm the same way. I used to read a lot. But what I find now, is that podcasts have replaced reading, in a sense. I don't have time to sit down and just read books that much anymore, unless it's summertime and I'm maybe on vacation, we're at the beach or something like that. I'll maybe take a book and try and finish it in the couple of days that I have there.

Marcus Neto:

But I do have, what we call, Drive Time University, which, I'm driving to and from work or I'm driving errands or something like that. I'll throw a podcast on. And I find that that is my way of learning those things now, and that I don't have to go to books, that I can find somebody that I feel understands things in a certain way that resonates with me. And I can just listen to them have conversations with different people. And through those conversations oftentimes, I learned more than I would in a 200 page book where they're trying to hammer home one point that I got in the first chapter.

Eva Ramos:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). Absolutely. And it kind of goes back to that thinking in the conference sense, if you get one thing or two things. I put a podcast on every time I'm in the car, and half the time, I'm probably not even listening to it. I got 8,000 other things on my mind. But every once in a while, they'll say something and you're like, "Ooh, that's good."

Marcus Neto:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Eva Ramos:

So, I just try to fill my mind with things like that-

Marcus Neto:

Yeah.

Eva Ramos:

... instead of music. I love music, but-

Marcus Neto:

Yeah.

Eva Ramos:

... I need the knowledge as well.

Marcus Neto:

It's weird because when I'm in the car, driving around, and podcasts are on, but there are certain instances where music is definitely... Like if we're hanging out with friends and we're on a boat or something like that, music is definitely a part of that, or even just hanging out at somebody's house. But for whatever reason, podcasts have been replaced in the car, because I like learning. I like that, that's a time where I can... Like you, I don't even have to be listening to it, but occasionally I'll catch something that they say and it kind of moves me in a way. What's the most important thing that you've learned about running a business?

Eva Ramos:

I think, just to never stop learning. I mean, things move so fast in this day and age. You think you have one thing figured out and then another algorithm comes out. You think you got Facebook figured out and then it's Instagram. Then you got Instagram figured out and then it's TikTok. who does TikTok? I don't know. I'm getting too old for that, but you got to figure it out.

Marcus Neto:

Yeah.

Eva Ramos:

So, you just always have to be looking at what new things are coming out.

Marcus Neto:

For sure. Yeah. And this is the hardest question that I'll ask you all day. How do you like to unwind?

Eva Ramos:

Yoga.

Marcus Neto:

Really?

Eva Ramos:

Yeah. It's my jam. I love it. Hot yoga. The hotter, the better.

Marcus Neto:

Some people are just weird like that.

Eva Ramos:

Yeah. I love it. It's my thing.

Marcus Neto:

I tried hot yoga once and-

Eva Ramos:

And I just bought a jet ski, so I love that. I get out on the water and do that.

Marcus Neto:

Yeah. Zoom around a little bit.

Eva Ramos:

Yeah, those are my two things.

Marcus Neto:

No, it's really cool. I get both of those, because I think the mindfulness of yoga and also the physicality of it, especially if you're doing hot yoga-

Eva Ramos:

Yeah.

Marcus Neto:

... is insane. And people don't, especially guys, I don't think guys understand just how much of a... and how much of a workout that can be.

Eva Ramos:

Well, it is a workout and it's also the one hour a day that my brain gets to turn off, because you are sweating and you're half dead. And so, you don't have time to think about all the other things. You're just trying to listen to what the instructor is saying and survive. So-

Marcus Neto:

That's funny.

Eva Ramos:

... that's why I like it.

Marcus Neto:

Yeah. Well, tell people where they can find out about you.

Eva Ramos:

Yeah. I'm on Facebook, Instagram, Pure Aloha Adventures is the Hawaii business and then Pure Aloha Adventures Alabama. So, you can find me on either of those. Websites or the same purealohaadventures.com or purealohaadventures.com/alabama.

Marcus Neto:

Nice. And so, you mentioned Facebook, Instagram, website. I think that's it. Okay. So... Well, I want to thank you, again, for coming on the podcast. Wrap up any final thoughts or comments you'd like to share.

Eva Ramos:

No. I appreciate you having me on and I'm looking forward to being part of the community down here. I'm new here, so I want to thank everybody for allowing me to be part of the community. And come out and do a paddle with me.

Marcus Neto:

Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. Well, I appreciate your willingness to sit with me and share your journey as a business owner and entrepreneur. It's been great talking with you.

Eva Ramos:

Thank you. Aloha.