Bringing What It Takes with Kate Hancock and Daniel Robbins to Forbes
When I started my first business with $20, I was focused on finding a customer, making a sale, and figuring out how to keep going.
Years later, that journey has brought me to a milestone I am proud to share: Daniel Robbins and I are bringing What It Takes with Kate Hancock and Daniel Robbins to Forbes through our Forbes Business Creator partnership.
We created this show to spotlight entrepreneurs who built their businesses from the ground up, using their own resources, taking personal risks, and finding ways forward when money was tight.
These are the stories I know firsthand. And these are the founders I want more people to meet.
Why We Created What It Takes
As a founder who has bootstrapped four businesses across different industries, I know how much a success story can leave out.
You see the revenue milestone. You rarely see the sleepless night before payroll.
You see the opening of a new location. You rarely hear about the mistakes, setbacks, and difficult decisions that came before it.
Building with limited resources forces you to become resourceful. You learn to sell, serve customers, manage people, and solve problems, often while learning the job yourself.
What It Takes brings those experiences into the conversation. We want to understand the decisions behind the results and give viewers something useful to take into their own lives and businesses.
Extraordinary Entrepreneurs Behind Everyday Businesses
Some remarkable businesses serve needs we encounter every day: cleaning, home services, landscaping, manufacturing, logistics, and more.
Behind those companies are founders who found their first customer, earned trust, built a team, and kept improving.
Our show will highlight entrepreneurs who bootstrapped their companies without outside funding or an inherited business. We want to explore how they started, what nearly stopped them, and how they grew beyond doing everything themselves.
For someone watching at home with an idea and a small budget, those details can make starting feel possible.
The Story, the Struggle, and the Masterclass
Each conversation will follow four parts.
We begin with the person behind the business: their upbringing, family history, motivations, and the experiences that shaped them. Guests will also be invited to bring meaningful objects that help tell their stories.
Then we explore how they started. Where did the idea come from? Who was their first customer? What did they get wrong? How did they move from their earliest sales toward a sustainable company?
The third part is a practical masterclass. Each founder will share lessons and approaches that viewers can apply, with particular attention to building when resources are limited.
We close with reflections on what the journey required of them and what they want another aspiring entrepreneur to understand.
A Personal Milestone
As a Filipina entrepreneur from Camiguin Island, this opportunity carries personal meaning.
My journey has taken me from starting small to building companies, creating jobs, and sharing conversations with people whose work reaches millions.
Through Founders Story, Daniel and I have interviewed extraordinary guests, including Tony Hawk, Lil Jon, Emma Grede, Dane Cook, Daymond John, and Robert Herjavec. Those conversations have strengthened my curiosity about what drives people and what they endure along the way.
With What It Takes, we are bringing that curiosity to the founders building businesses in communities across America.
Thank you to everyone who has supported our work, shared our conversations, and believed in us as we have grown.
Daniel and I are excited to share this next chapter with you.
If you have built a business from the ground up, you know how much happens before anyone hears your story. We created What It Takes to help tell it.