Chris Alvarez began his own production company, Transcendent Enterprise, in a room at NYU Tandon in 2005. Today, Transcendent Enterprise has produced over 5,000 videos, helped raise millions of dollars for their clients through their video services, and produced videos all over the world, in countries like London, Ghana, Jamaica, and Sweden. Some of their most notable clients include Facebook, NYU, HBO, Tide, Mariah Carey, Mount Sinai Hospital, and Columbia University, among others.
Chris lives in Harlem, New York, and grew up in Queens. His father, who migrated to the United States at age 19, is Afro-Latino and Garifuna from Guatemala. “Though I currently do not maintain relations with the country, I am very interested to begin a relationship. At my current age, I am leaving myself accountable to visit and put the pieces together,” Chris told IQLatino. He was close to his aunt, who unfortunately recently passed away from the coronavirus. In her Bronx apartment, he learned a lot about his Garifuna culture. “The place was always filled with love, food was offered, laughs and jokes were exchanged,” he said.
Transcendent Enterprise has moved from an incubator in NYU Tandon to the Flatiron and recently to a bigger space in Chelsea, New York. They specialize in corporate content creation, pre-production, 4k production, editing, live streaming and photography for clients in a variety of different industries and fields of work. They have gotten to be part of programs like NYU Strategic Steps program, LBAN at Stanford, Dartmouth Program with Tuck and Google, and NBC Edge. “Each of those programs helped increase my intellect, network with like-minded individuals,” Chris said.
“Our key performance indicator is that we develop relationships with university and event planners who run the same event every year. That creates a base to grow, and we search for new clients by focusing on SEO (search engine optimization) efforts,” he explained. This has allowed the company to grow 10-20 percent in the last ten years, and they hope to continue growing this year, despite the drastic climate. “I believe in taking my time, which is a gift and curse. It helped me last this long, but we have been in the game for slow growth,” he added.
Chris explained some of the challenges he has faced throughout his project. “Transcendent was under resourced from birth,” he said. “We have a culture of a team who wears many hats.” He explained how much effort and strategy it takes to grow in such a competitive business. “We are the underdog. And I personally love it. It fuels me,” he said.
But despite the challenges, Chris attributes Transcendent’s success to their grit and love of the work they do. “I hold myself accountable for everything and I’m learning each day to keep myself moving forward,” he said. He is also currently starting a new company, called DingDing Games. Chris aims for a business model in which he can keep his staff employed and happy. “I want to create superstars, not hire them. I respect a humbled mind ready to learn more than someone who feels they know everything,” he explained.
As for advice to other Latinos who would like to start a venture in the United States, “be able to get up 20 times if you have fallen 19,” Chris said. “Don’t stop believing in yourself, and don’t stop dreaming. It’s very cliché, but few operate from that space,” he added.
Check out more of Transcendent’s work here, including the NYU Stern graduation video below, and their work with the United Nations and Facebook using only an iPhone 11 pro.