The streaming wars have seen giants of entertainment—Netflix, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery—duke it out for consumers, each with a fast-growing library of original movies and TV to keep viewers coming back. Roku is a bit of a dark horse in this race. But the platform’s recent hit series Solo Traveling with Tracee Ellis Ross suggests the scrappy underdog might just become a real contender.

At the Fast Company Innovation Festival in New York this week, Roku head of originals Brian Tannenbaum told the crowd it all started with a text message. Ross’s agent sent Tannenbaum just a handful of words: “Tracee Ellis Ross. Solo travel show.” It was enough.

You only need to hear Ross speak once to know why.

The daughter of legendary Motown singer Diana Ross, a theater graduate from Brown Universit

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