Miami-born Victoriano wants to update telenovelas, those old-school Latin American TV soap operas, for the 21st century through her podcast company, Sonoro. Launched in 2020, Los Angeles–based Sonoro partners with more than 300 Latino storytellers to develop podcast series in English, Spanish and Spanglish. “We felt the telenovela was due for a bit of a refresh,” says Victoriano, who previously helped launch the popular Dirty John podcast at the Los Angeles Times. It seems to be working: Sonoro’s 172 titles, which include hits like Princess of South Beach and Tejana, average more than 31 million monthly downloads. Their next venture: the big screen. Backed by $13 million in funding, Sonoro has secured deals with Paramount+ and Netflix and now has a half-dozen podcasts being adapted for TV and film. “The toughest part is sometimes Latinos are still seen as niche, but there’s 60 million in the U.S.—660 million around the world,” Victoriano says. “So for us . . . the mission can be the revenue.”
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Camila, thank you so much for sitting with me.
00:05 - Thank you so much for having me.
00:06 I'm so excited to be here.
00:07 - Of course.
00:08 So I wanna first talk about what exactly your company does.
00:11 Can you explain Sonoro for me?
00:12 - Yeah, so Sonoro is a global entertainment company.
00:15 So we develop audio first IP,
00:17 so concepts that start as podcasts,
00:19 primarily with Latino creators around the world.
00:22 So in English, Spanish, or bilingual.
00:24 And then we take that IP and develop it into TV,
00:26 film, books, event series, merchandise, e-commerce,
00:30 basically everything under the sun.
00:31 - Tell me about your founding story.
00:33 What were you doing before,
00:34 and then how did this company come about?
00:35 - I've always been in love with storytelling.
00:38 That's what brings me the most passion and the most joy.
00:41 And so I always knew I wanted to do something
00:42 in the entertainment or storytelling space.
00:45 Right after college,
00:45 my first job was actually a nonfiction storytelling.
00:47 So I was at the LA Times for about four years.
00:50 In that sort of journey,
00:51 I came across audio and podcasting
00:54 as this really great way to develop IP and make it grow
00:58 and sort of enhance the audience that we already had.
01:00 And so in 2017, I was part of the team
01:03 that launched "Dirty John,"
01:04 which was the first podcast LA Times ever produced.
01:07 It was this insane true crime story,
01:10 and it was sort of a runaway success.
01:12 Today it has over 80 million downloads.
01:14 And that was the first time that I saw audio
01:17 as an IP property being used to develop
01:19 all different types of media.
01:20 And to me, that was like a very big sort of aha moment
01:24 that as someone that always loves stories and content,
01:27 this was sort of like the next frontier or the next medium
01:30 where that experimentation and excitement
01:32 was gonna come from.
01:33 So I spent the next sort of three years
01:35 launching about a dozen podcasts with the LA Times.
01:38 And then at that point,
01:38 sort of felt ready to go and build something
01:41 more from the ground up.
01:42 It was a little bit of mini startup
01:43 within a larger organization at the time,
01:45 and gave me, I think, the entrepreneurial itch
01:48 to really get with my co-founders and start Tenoro.
01:50 - Very cool.
01:51 Now there's so many podcast companies out there today.
01:53 Obviously a lot of entertainment companies as well.
01:56 How do you stand out from like the wonderies of the world
01:58 or other companies doing similar things,
02:01 but maybe through a different lens?
02:02 - Yeah, I think for us, first and foremost,
02:04 we really believe ourselves to be an entertainment company.
02:06 So for us, audio is really just that first step.
02:09 We want everything to exist beyond that.
02:10 And like I said, it can be TV, it can be film,
02:13 which is more what you've traditionally seen podcasts become.
02:15 But this month we launched our first graphic novel,
02:17 which is based on a podcast that we've produced.
02:20 We have live events and tours with some of our podcasters
02:22 that we're producing as well going into next year.
02:24 And then separately, of course, for us,
02:26 the focus really is the Latino community around the world.
02:28 And there's 500 million global Spanish speakers,
02:30 60 million US Latinos.
02:32 So for us, that is our big differentiator.
02:34 - So now I want to talk about your fundraising journey.
02:39 Can you tell me about how much you've raised
02:41 and what the process has been like for you?
02:43 - Yeah, so today we've raised about $13 million.
02:45 So our primary investors are Lair Hippo
02:47 and Founder Collective and Greycroft.
02:49 We have some really excellent media investors.
02:51 And again, I've been very lucky to have
02:53 some great co-founders to go on that journey with.
02:55 And I think that in a way we were familiar
02:58 and unfamiliar as a concept, right?
03:00 Like people understood at the time we launched March 2020.
03:03 At that point there had been audio, I know, right?
03:06 - That's a fun time to launch a company.
03:07 - Interesting timing.
03:08 But people understood conceptually to a certain extent,
03:12 the audio to TV and film pipeline.
03:15 And I think where we had to sort of do more education
03:17 in our pitches, frankly, was we're going beyond that.
03:19 We really are thinking about this
03:21 as a global entertainment company
03:22 that's developing not just TV and film,
03:25 but all of these other mediums
03:26 and focusing on this global community.
03:28 - Talk to me a little bit about your audience.
03:30 You know, how many is it?
03:32 How many in the US?
03:32 How many globally?
03:33 And who are the types of people
03:35 that you're trying to reach?
03:36 - Yeah, so today we have over 25 million global downloads.
03:39 So that is across Mexico and Latin America,
03:42 primarily Mexico, and then US, Latino.
03:44 So we're split about 80/20 to LATAM and the US.
03:48 And our audience is young.
03:49 I mean, they're typically 18 to 35.
03:51 They're in the bigger cities.
03:53 In the US, they are where you would expect them to be
03:55 for primarily sort of Latino-dominated cities
03:57 in California, Arizona, New York, Florida, et cetera.
04:00 But they're young and they're sort of excited
04:02 and they're diverse.
04:03 - Last question for you.
04:05 What do you want your legacy to be?
04:07 - I mean, so I was just a little nerd when I was young.
04:10 I was incredibly nerdy.
04:12 I was, like I said, I loved fan fiction and sci-fi
04:15 and fantasy and all that stuff.
04:16 And part of the reason why I focused on storytelling
04:21 as sort of the through line of my career
04:23 and sort of personal choices and interests
04:25 is because I just love the way
04:27 a great story makes me feel.
04:28 And I think like a lot of the community
04:30 that is built online around those things
04:32 is really special for a lot of people,
04:34 especially that are outcasts when they're growing up.
04:36 And so I think, I hope that my legacy with Sonoro
04:39 and beyond really is either facilitating
04:42 or being a part of making these great shows
04:44 that make people feel the same way I feel
04:46 when I read a really great book.
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