Before the exits and the empire, David Royce was a college kid who just wanted to surf and make some extra cash. A door-to-door pest control job changed everything.

After helping his boss grow the company from $1 million to $10 million in revenue, David realized he was the one driving the growth. That moment became the spark for everything that followed, building and selling his own nine-figure business, four times.

He took the lessons, systems, and mindset from that experience and built his own blueprint, creating and selling four companies in one of the least glamorous industries. His secret wasn’t luck. It was people, process, and the discipline to outwork everyone else.

In this episode, David shares how he built leaders, not just businesses, and why the key to scaling isn’t motivation,  it’s structure, belief, and relentless consistency.

In this episode, we talk about:

• The turning point that changed how he viewed work and success
• How he scaled through structure, not shortcuts
• Why his leadership model centers on people, not profit
• The mindset behind building the same business four times, better each time
• What it means to outwork and outthink everyone around you

🎧 Listen to learn how a white-collar mindset transformed a blue-collar world, and what it really takes to build something that lasts.

#TheHustleByHanna

When Stephen and Allison Ellsworth started mixing apple cider vinegar and fruit in their Texas kitchen, they weren’t chasing a billion-dollar idea. They were solving a problem.

That kitchen experiment became Poppi, the prebiotic soda that redefined modern wellness and made healthy taste cool. From farmers markets to Shark Tank, from rebranding Mother Beverage into Poppi, to an $11 million Super Bowl gamble that changed everything — this is the story behind one of the most iconic beverage brands of the decade.

In this episode of The Hustle by Hanna, Stephen Ellsworth shares how Poppi built community, culture, and category leadership, leading to a $1.95 billion acquisition by PepsiCo.

You’ll learn:
 • How Poppi transformed authenticity into brand equity
 • The pivotal TikTok moment that changed their trajectory
 • The risks and payoffs behind their Super Bowl ad
 • What it takes to scale culture while scaling growth
 • The founder mindset that led to a billion-dollar exit

Poppi didn’t just build a brand. It built a movement.

🎧 Listen now and subscribe for more founder stories that blend grit, growth, and purpose.

#TheHustleByHanna

Amy Liu is the founder and CEO of Tower 28 Beauty, one of Sephora’s fastest-growing clean-beauty brands and the first ever to meet the National Eczema Association’s ingredient standards.

Tower 28 was born from Amy’s lifelong struggle with sensitive skin and her desire to make beauty fun, safe, and accessible for everyone. She launched the company at 40 years old, with three kids and no outside funding, proving it’s never too late to start over or to start something that matters.

In under five years, Tower 28 has tripled sales year over year, gone viral on TikTok with millions of views, and expanded into 600 + Sephora stores and international markets. Its hero product, the SOS Spray, became a cult favorite and turned what began as a personal solution into a global movement for clean beauty that actually works.

Before founding Tower 28, Amy spent over two decades in the beauty industry at L’Oréal, Josie Maran, and Kate Somerville, where she learned what it takes to build a brand and why the industry needed change. Her vision was to create a space where clean beauty could be high-performance, affordable, and truly inclusive.

Unlike traditional beauty startups chasing trends, Tower 28 built its foundation on values. Inside the company, Amy developed what she calls the HOCK values—Hustle, Ownership, Cool, and Kaizen, the Japanese principle of continuous improvement.

It’s a culture that prizes curiosity, collaboration, and community, the same qualities that made Tower 28 resonate far beyond beauty shelves.

Amy’s journey is as much about leadership as it is about skincare. From immigrant roots in small-town Minnesota to running one of the most influential clean-beauty brands today, her story is one of resilience, reinvention, and heart.

In our conversation, Amy shares:

• How growing up as the daughter of immigrants shaped her drive and values
• The moment at 40 when she decided it was now or never
• What she learned from two decades in corporate beauty before launching on her own
• How Tower 28’s HAWK values define its culture and growth
• Why inclusion, empathy, and continuous improvement are her biggest competitive advantages
• The personal story behind Tower 28’s hero SOS Spray and how it became a cult product

This is a story about purpose, courage, and the power of starting late, proof that beauty can be both clean and groundbreaking when built on heart and hustle.

Follow #TheHustleByHanna for founder insights, behind-the-scenes clips, and weekly takeaways.

This episode marks a new kind of conversation on The Hustle by Hanna. Instead of spotlighting founders who have already scaled, Hanna turns the focus to the early hustle, the building phase where ideas are still taking shape and innovation is happening in real time.

Hanna sits down with Bhavani Kalisetty and Arjun Chintapalli, co-founders of RTRVR AI, a browser-based agent that is changing the way people and businesses work online. Built to make the internet do more for you, RTRVR AI automates the everyday: researching leads, pulling data, sending emails, posting content, and even analyzing competitors, all while you focus on the bigger picture.

For entrepreneurs, RTRVR AI can build prospect lists, send outreach emails, and follow up with leads automatically so they can grow the business without hiring another person. For marketers and creators, it can research trends, draft posts, and even publish content across platforms while they focus on strategy and storytelling. And for anyone buried in tabs, tasks, and spreadsheets, it can pull reports, find suppliers, or fill out forms in the background so their browser finally starts working for them.

Bhavani and Arjun share how a late-night hackathon project turned into one of the most talked about tools in AI and what the “agentic web” means for the next generation of productivity.

In this episode:
• How RTRVR AI automates real tasks for businesses and individuals
• Practical examples across marketing, research, and content creation
• Why the browser is the next frontier for AI
• The mindset behind building at the edge of innovation

Watch this one on YouTube. It is a hands-on, demo-style episode where you can see RTRVR AI in action and follow along as Hanna tests live use cases.

If you have ever wondered what it looks like when your computer truly starts working for you, this episode is the one to watch.

Follow #TheHustleByHanna for more founder insights, behind the scenes clips, and weekly takeaways:
• LinkedIn
• Instagram

Henry Elkus is the founder and CEO of Helena, a problem solving institution that brings together leaders from business, science, policy, and philanthropy to take on humanity’s hardest challenges. From climate change to AI safety to the future of democracy, Helena is rewriting how institutions act on the issues that will define our century.

Unlike a think tank or a traditional nonprofit, Helena does not stop at ideas. It sources, vets, and implements real projects. That has meant protecting the U.S. electrical grid through the SHIELD Project, responding to pandemic threats through Helena Biosecurity, and reimagining democracy with America in One Room, a deliberative experiment featured on the front page of The New York Times.

Henry started Helena when he was just 20 years old, leaving Yale to pursue the vision of building an institution designed to last far beyond his own lifetime. In less than a decade, Helena has grown into a platform where Nobel laureates, entrepreneurs, scientists, and policymakers come together to take action on problems that affect us all.

In our conversation Henry shares:

• How he went from Yale dropout to building a global institution at 20 years old
• The relentless early hustle of cold emails, rejections, and conference crashes that led to Helena’s first members, including Nobel laureates
• Why Helena was structured to act across nonprofit, for profit, and policy channels depending on what a problem demands
• The inside story of Helena’s early projects, from securing critical infrastructure to advancing pandemic preparedness and democratic reform
• His reflections on a decade of building and why Helena must be designed to outlive its founder

This is a story about ambition at scale and the grind it takes to turn vision into an institution that can change the future.

Henry’s Bookshelf

Henry shared several books that have shaped his thinking on leadership, problem-solving, and building institutions:

• The Brothers Karamazov: A recent, life-changing read that offers a mind-blowing and intimate exploration of human nature, madness, and family dynamics through deeply developed characters.
• The Lessons of History: A profound 100-page summary of 50 years of historical study, conveying essential, repeated lessons about human nature and civilization that deeply changed his perspective.
• The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: A recent read that illustrates how civilizations collapse in slow motion, providing crucial, timeless lessons on structural decline and societal challenges relevant today.
• The Little Prince: His all-time favorite book for its ability to distill complex philosophical concepts into a simple, beautiful children’s story, representing a philosophy of life he constantly revisits.
• Paleolithic Cave Art (Textbook): An unexpected recommendation that sparked new ways of thinking about early human intelligence, communication, and the meaning behind ancient cave paintings.

If you want to dive deeper into his bookshelf and follow along with the titles that continue to shape him, you can find his full reading list on ElkList or Analogue

Don’t miss next week’s episode:

Listen and subscribe here:
• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• Transistor

Follow #TheHustleByHanna for more founder insights, behind the scenes clips, and weekly takeaways:
• LinkedIn
• Instagram

What does innovation look like in healthcare today? Is it about new technologies, billion-dollar exits, or the number of companies you build?

For James “Jim” Wallace, the answer goes deeper. It’s about harnessing data and AI to transform patient care and making sure the science of medicine stays personal.

Jim is an entrepreneur, investor, and thought leader who has built and backed companies at the crossroads of healthcare and technology. He’s also the author of Precision Medicine: The Science and Business of Personalized Healthcare, which unpacks how personalized healthcare is reshaping the future of medicine.

In this week’s episode of The Hustle by Hanna, Jim and I dive into:

• The SpaceX lesson he learned from Elon Musk why “impossible” usually signals opportunity
• How AI can turn costs into assets and give doctors time back to focus on patients
• Why trust is the biggest barrier in healthcare and how transparency with AI can increase it
• The four drivers shaping the future of care: wearables, genomics, big data, and AI
• Practical steps patients can take today, from PGX testing to wearables, to improve their own health
• What entrepreneurs in any industry can learn about empathy, customer trust, and innovation from healthcare

Jim’s story is proof that entrepreneurship isn’t just about companies, it’s about curiosity, impact, and reimagining the systems that touch every life.

If you’ve ever wondered how technology can truly humanize healthcare, this is a conversation you won’t want to miss.

Want the actionable playbook behind this conversation? James lays it out in Precision Medicine, now available on Amazon.

Follow #TheHustleByHanna and connect with me for more founder insights, behind-the-scenes clips, and weekly takeaways:
• LinkedIn
• Instagram

Want to learn more about my journey?
Read my feature: Meet Hanna Laikin of BrightPoint Communications

Jerre Stead has led 10 public companies, served on 37 boards, and built a reputation as one of the most trusted leaders in business. His career spans decades at the top of Fortune 500 firms, guiding organizations through transformation and growth.

But what makes Jerre unique isn’t just his leadership in the boardroom, it’s his impact beyond it. Together with his wife Mary Joy, he has given more than $400 million to healthcare, education, and communities in need.

In this episode of The Hustle by Hanna, you’ll learn:

• How Jerre approaches decision-making when the stakes are highest
• The leadership qualities that matter most in boardrooms and beyond
• Why giving back has been central to his life and career
• How to think about legacy in business and in service

Now in his 80s, Jerre is still mentoring, still building, and still proving that true success is measured by the lives you impact.

This conversation is a must listen for anyone who wants to understand what decades at the top and the most intentional form of giving can teach us about leadership rooted in responsibility, not recognition. Follow @TheHustlebyHanna across all platforms.

What separates a successful career from a life of impact?

In this episode, Hanna sits down with Mickey Maurer, founder of the Indiana Business Journal and the National Bank of Indianapolis, to go beyond the headlines and uncover the principles that shaped his journey. From law and media to banking and philanthropy, Mickey has built a legacy on perspective, conviction, and community.

He doesn’t just talk about success, he lives by it. He’s written seven books, produced films for HBO, climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, and created Mickey’s Camp, an adult summer camp that has raised millions for Indiana charities. At Indiana University, the Maurer School of Law bears his name, a reflection of his belief that giving back is the most important principle of all.

We get into:

 • The 10 Essential Principles that guided his career
 • Why community and giving back are core to entrepreneurship
 • Building networks that last beyond industries and titles
 • His definition of balance through curiosity, activity, and lifelong learning
 • The lessons you do not learn in school but every entrepreneur needs

This one is a must-listen for entrepreneurs, builders, and lifelong learners who believe success is about more than profit: it is about purpose and community.

Follow @TheHustlebyHanna across all platforms!

What separates a good leader from a generational one?

In this episode, Hanna sits down with JP Engelbrecht, CEO of South Central Inc., to talk about what real leadership looks like, not the title, but the lifelong mission of building culture, developing people, and staying grounded in your faith and values. 

JP doesn’t just lead a third-generation family business, he leads it. 

From climbing towers as a teen to flying himself to board meetings, he’s spent his life learning every part of the business. But what drives him isn’t the flash, it’s the fit. JP shares why culture is his biggest investment, how he supports CEOs across industries, and why “business is an honorable calling” is more than just a phrase—it’s a leadership philosophy.We get into:

• Why every success (or failure) comes back to leadership
• How to build teams that care and stay
• Quiet intensity vs. loud ambition: the leadership styles that work
• The real reason family businesses succeed (or don’t)
• How faith, values, and vision shape his leadership playbook

This one’s a must-listen for founders, operators, and anyone who believes leadership is about service, not ego.Follow @TheHustlebyHanna across all platforms!

When Lisa Wardell looks back on her journey, it’s not the titles or accolades that stand out. It’s the winding, non-linear path that took her from first generation college graduate to CEO of a public company.

On this episode of The Hustle by Hanna, Lisa shares how “learning agility” became her greatest asset, why she’s never been afraid to start from scratch, and how confidence is built one hard earned win at a time. We talk about breaking through barriers, mentoring the next generation, and rewriting the story of what leadership looks like.

You will learn 
• How Lisa turned self doubt into a belief she could learn anything 
• The importance of “learning agility” in navigating career changes 
• Why non linear career paths can create the most valuable skillsets 
• The milestones she’s most proud of and the ones people often overlook 
• How she uses mentorship to help others see their own potential

Whether you’re first in your family to chase a big goal or deep into your own leadership journey, Lisa’s story is proof that resilience, curiosity, and a willingness to learn can take you anywhere.

Listen now and share with someone who needs to hear it!