We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Valentina Pinzon. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Valentina below.

Valentina, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

I have always been interested in culture and art and have great respect for indigenous cultures and art. So, I started this brand to honor and support indigenous artisans. That is how we came up with our name Indi (for indigenous) Arts.

I ended up focusing on South America as I am from Colombia. Having had the chance to visit many South American countries, I was very impressed by the talent of indigenous, traditional artisans and their impeccable and vibrant handcrafts. However, there was an upsetting side to it as artisans lacked support from locals, lived in poor conditions, were underpaid, and were unable to maintain traditions as they ended up working in a different field to make a living.

My mission has always been to give back and connect to my Latin American roots. Seeing these hardworking people live under tough conditions, I made a promise to make my dream of helping them come to fruition. IndiArts Collective stands for support and recognition of South American artisans and increasing awareness of cultural traditions in the handicrafts industry by offering a wide selection of indigenous/traditional-made products that support many artisans’ communities in Colombia and Mexico.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Hola! I’m Valentina Pinzon – the owner of IndiArts Collective and a Colombian living in Canada since 2008. I’ve always appreciated indigenous culture and tradition so I started IndiArts to honor indigenous communities. For the past 5 years, we’ve been collaborating with indigenous artisans and small businesses from South America who create quality and authentic products. We provide them with fair income to support and preserve their traditions and culture expressed through the handicraft industry. Our business goal is to connect with more artisans every year. IndiArts also represents product transparency. Our customers know who made the products and where they come from, and each of them tells a unique story.

What motivates our work since the beginning:

1) helping those in need, giving back to my home country
2) connecting with my roots and promoting culture recognition and maintenance
3) contributing to solving big problems (disparity around the world, fast fashion, neglect of marginalized artisans in Latin America)
4) having a flexible lifestyle to stay close to my family

Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.

I am lucky to have a father who has been involved in retail for most of his life as he has many contacts in the industry that have been very helpful since the beginning of our business. Once I decided what we wanted to make, my dad helped me to find some businesses that could manufacture our products. I visited the different options and selected the companies that seemed best and more aligned with our business model of working with small businesses that respect their workers and offer a good working environment to their employees. We hire a designer that helped us to design our products and we worked together with the businesses to create samples of our products. When we were happy with the samples, we proceed to make more units. Manufacturing a product is complex as it can take many tries and investments (time, material, workforce, and money).

Any thoughts, advice, or strategies you can share for fostering brand loyalty?

We use email marketing and social media to keep in touch with our clients. Through these, we make sure we keep communicating with our clients and build and foster a relationship. We try to “humanize” our brand as we believe it is important to show the people behind our business, including me (owner), artisans, and employees. Another way more traditionally we keep in touch with our clients is by attending events in which I get to connect in person with my clients and build more personal relationships. As for brand loyalty, we offer special promotions to our email subscribers and social media followers so they know how much we appreciate them.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.indiartscollective.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/indiartscollective/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/indiartscollective/