Community Highlights: Meet Daniel Hancock of Asset Financial Planners

Today we’d like to introduce you to Daniel Hancock.

Hi Daniel, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
The Beginning: A 3:00 AM Realization
My story really started with a moment of mortality. When my father passed away at age 67, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was in my early 30s, and I realized that if I followed a similar timeline, I was already at the halfway point. I had a vision for how financial services should be delivered, and I realized that “someday” had to be “today.”

I didn’t have a massive seed round or a corporate backing. I quit my stable job at the bank, borrowed my wife’s laptop, and we rented a small, drafty house in downtown Cheyenne. I remember scouring Facebook Marketplace for used desks and chairs just so we’d have a place to sit. It was lean, it was risky, and it was exactly what I needed.

The universe seemed to agree—I landed my first official client just one hour after opening the doors.

The Growth: Protecting the True Asset
In the early days, I partnered with a close friend and talented advisor, Pablo Aldana. We worked hard to build the foundation, but eventually, we hit a crossroads where the revenue just couldn’t support two growing families. I made the difficult decision to buy out his stake to keep the vision moving forward.

That vision is built on what I call “Rule Number One: Protect the Asset.” In this industry, people usually think the “asset” is the money. To us, the asset is the person. (Asset Financial Planners)

We’ve scaled to managing $100 million by doing things that don’t “scale” easily: we provide a personal touch in volume. We’ve had clients come in just because they needed someone to talk to or a community to lean on. We help with things that have nothing to do with a balance sheet because we believe if you take care of the person, the finances follow.

Where We Are Today: High-Tech, High-Touch
Over the last year, we’ve hit a new gear. We moved into a beautifully remodeled building in the heart of Cheyenne and merged in our CPA partners. This allows us to provide a total ecosystem of investment and tax services under one roof. We’ve been able to attract incredible talent from much larger organizations because they believe in that “person-first” mission.

Today, we serve clients in 12 states. We are aggressive about the future—we are leveraging AI and the latest tech to create a fast-paced environment, but we’re doing it for one reason: to buy back more time to focus on our people. We started in a small house with a borrowed laptop, and while the building and the numbers have changed, that sense of urgency and care hasn’t.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It definitely wasn’t a straight line up. People see the $100 million in assets under management now, but they didn’t see the first few months when I wasn’t taking a paycheck at all. There’s a specific kind of pressure when you’re pouring everything into a vision and waiting for the revenue to catch up to the bills.

The biggest challenge, though, wasn’t just the money—it was the isolation. In the beginning, there were many days I sat in that office by myself. When you’re a solo founder, you don’t have a sounding board to bounce ideas off of. You are the CEO, the advisor, the receptionist, and the janitor all at once.

I had to learn a very difficult level of self-discipline. When you’re alone, you have to be honest enough to identify your own weaknesses and disciplined enough to cover them up before they hurt the business. There were plenty of days filled with personal doubt, asking myself if I had made a mistake leaving the security of the bank.

The hardest part was the ‘founder’s paradox’: How do you staff an office full-time, provide white-glove service to existing clients, and still find the time to go out and hunt for new growth? There were no extra hours in the day, so I just had to find a way to be more efficient than everyone else. That season of solitude is actually what forced me to develop the ‘high-tech’ systems we use today. I had to automate the mundane so I could stay human for my clients.”

As you know, we’re big fans of Asset Financial Planners. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
What makes Asset Financial different?
“If you look at our website or talk to our team, you’ll see we don’t follow the traditional industry playbook. We pioneered something we call Tax-First Financial Planning.

Most firms manage your investments and then send you to a CPA to deal with the aftermath. We flipped that on its head. We believe you don’t keep what you earn—you keep what you don’t pay in taxes. By leading with tax management as the foundation of every financial plan, we ensure that every dollar is working toward the client’s future, not just sitting in a government account. It’s an offshoot of traditional planning that we created specifically to solve the ‘leakage’ most people experience in their wealth.

The Asset Financial Community
While we are experts in tax and investment strategy, what I am most proud of isn’t a spreadsheet. It’s the community that has grown inside our clientele.

In this industry, success is usually measured in returns. At Asset Financial, we measure it in quality of life and human connection. We have built an environment where our clients don’t just know us—they know each other. It’s common to see our clients meet at one of our events and end up becoming best friends. They take vacations together, they meet for Bible study, and they share Christmas cards.

When I see our clients going out to lunch together or supporting each other through life’s ups and downs, I know we’ve succeeded. We’ve created a ‘personal touch in volume’ that provides a sense of belonging. At the end of the day, we want our clients to be wealthy, but more importantly, we want them to be happy and connected.

The Bottom Line
We want readers to know that we are a fast-paced, tech-heavy firm that uses AI to be efficient—but we use that efficiency to be more human. We handle the complex tax and investment work so that our clients can focus on the things that actually matter: their families, their faith, and their community. We started with a borrowed laptop and a vision, and today, $100 million later, that vision of ‘Protecting the Asset’ (the person) is stronger than ever.

Who else deserves credit in your story?
No one builds something like this alone. While my name might be on the door, the foundation of Asset Financial was laid by the people who believed in the vision when it was just a borrowed laptop and a dream.

My Wife: First and foremost, my wife deserves incredible credit. She didn’t just ‘support’ me; she literally equipped me. She let me borrow her laptop to start the business, and she stood by me during those early months when the paychecks weren’t coming in. Her belief in me was the safety net that allowed me to take the leap.

Pablo Aldana: My early partner and close friend. Pablo was there in the trenches during the ‘small house downtown’ days. Even though the business eventually required a transition to a single owner to support our families, his influence and the work we did together in the early days are baked into the DNA of this firm.
Our Clients: I owe everything to the clients who took a chance on us in the beginning. My very first client, who signed on just one hour after we opened, didn’t join because we had a fancy office or $100 million in assets—they joined because they trusted me. Our clients are our biggest advocates; they are the ones who have grown this business through word-of-mouth because they believe in ‘Rule Number One’ as much as I do.

Drake Guerra, Director: Drake is instrumental in making sure the ‘high-tech, high-touch’ promise actually happens. As our Director, he ensures that as we scale to serving clients in 12 states, we don’t lose the soul of the company. He manages the fast-paced, tech-heavy environment that allows us to stay ahead of the curve while maintaining the quality of life and community that our clients have come to expect.

Kirsten Anderson, CPA: The alignment with our tax partners was a pivotal moment for us, and Kirsten is at the heart of that. Having a CPA of her caliber in-house allows us to bridge the gap between wealth management and tax strategy. She is the architect behind a lot of the ‘keeping more of what you earn’ philosophy. Because of her expertise, we can look a client in the eye and know we are protecting their assets from every angle—including the IRS.

Pricing:

• 1.3% AUM fee.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.assetfinancialplanners.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100091226228276
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-hancock-aa727a64/

Image Credits
All self created images.