Today we’d like to introduce you to Valeria Nardecchia.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I started in the entertainment industry in 1996 at the main nationwide television station in Argentina, selling their original productions to the international television channels. In 2001, there was a huge economic crisis in the country and my husband Fede and I decided to look for opportunities in abroad. Fede was offered a great production job in Miami, and we moved to the city where we live since. Almost immediately, I was hired to lead the top television clients advertising sales for the main Spanish entertainment business publisher, and I stayed at that job for 15 years. In 2017, the company I was working for relocated most of their operations to Mexico and I remained jobless, but not clueless since I had some ideas in mind. I had two children of 10 and 12 years old at that time and I had not spent enough time with them since they were born due to work, which included a lot of travel time, and I was in need to stay still for a while and travel with my kids and husband to some exciting places.
After discussing the plan with my husband who widely supported me, I decided to take a sabbatical year and following, launch a boutique audiovisual distribution company. Tsunun, which means hummingbird in ancient Mayan language, offers a relevant curated stories catalogue including documentaries, series, films, author books and originals projects, based on specific values: sustainability, displacement, social inclusion, nature, immigration, marginality, art, culture, women issues, LGBTQ rights, and personal transformation, among other topics. Entrepreneur life is a rollercoaster, thus I cannot be more thankful for the huge cooperation and encouragement from my family and friends in and outside the business.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It’s never a smooth road with entrepreneurship. You’ll be learning new skills every day, you’ll need to be disciplined because some days you will not be able to count on your willpower, you’ll need to understand that it is necessary to ask for help in order to succeed, and it can be a very lonely landscape. You will also sacrifice activities and relationships, but those that are true and loving will always remain and be there for you. I’ve found one of the main obstacles are not knowing yourself and what’s your purpose for starting a business. Having a clear mind is key to continue when things are getting complicated, and I strongly recommend working with a coach or therapist who can help along the way.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
Tsunun is a boutique distribution company. It sells the rights for finished audiovisual productions (movies, series, documentaries) from production companies that do not count with a sales division and independent producers. We also have projects, scripts and author books that we pitch to production companies, television channels and digital platforms which invest in development, adaptation and original production for their screens, and we negotiate the rights. We really want to represent stories that will create empathy, connection and create some sort of action as well, and THIS makes us different from other distributors. I believe that we as executives in the entertainment industry have a powerful opportunity to create the good that we want to see in the world, and with great powers comes great responsibility. Of course, we need to make money to support our operations and continue growing, but Tsunun is not a mere transactional business. I’ve had the chance to discover amazing human beings behind every project, book and production that we cherry-picked, and they made my life richer and my work purposeful.
What were you like growing up?
I had a really happy childhood, growing up in a small middle-class Italian immigrant community in Buenos Aires, Argentina with post-war parents who were working hard to create a better world and reality for their children. I was living with my two parents, my grandma, my two lovely sisters, close to my huge extended family who loved to celebrate every event of our lives, and make parties with music, food and dance. When I was in high school, I wanted to study literature but I did not like teaching. I also loved magazines, the media and communications. I was very interested in human relations and psychology. I also loved traveling. I studied English, Communications and Public Relations, and when I got my degree, I wanted to see the world, so I went backpacking to Europe for some months by myself, I went to many countries and met with people from different parts for the world with very different backgrounds and ideology. I loved that because it gave me a sense of mental expansion and understanding the world. I also started dancing -salsa rhythm mainly-, which remained my passion up to date.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.tsunun.net
- Phone: 3054946888
- Email: valeria@tsunun.net
- Instagram: tsunun_distribution
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tsunun.net
Image Credit:
Fede Bianchi
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