We recently caught up with Julian Boaitey, founder of Yendy Skin, to talk about building a purpose-led beauty brand and how the Immerse Catalyst Accelerator helped sharpen focus, confidence, and momentum after five years of building.
Yendy Skin sits at the intersection of heritage and innovation. The brand is on a mission to bridge small-scale female farmers across Sub-Saharan Africa with a global beauty industry that has historically overlooked them.
At the centre of the brand is what Julian calls “Yendy-approved African superfood ingredients”, a trademarked blend of shea butter, moringa, baobab and hibiscus, paired with science-backed actives drawn from modern skincare innovation. It is a formulation philosophy rooted in purpose but built to perform.
Still, even with a strong product and a clear mission, Julian felt something was missing. Structure, clarity and a community that truly understood the founder journey.
That search is what led him to the Immerse Catalyst Accelerator.
Julian joined the programme at what they describe as a deliberate inflection point.
“As founders, we need to be constantly learning. I was in a season where I wanted to refresh key business concepts, gain insight from industry experts, and connect with other founders on a similar journey.”
The accelerator brought together founders at comparable stages and gave them direct access to investors, ex-founders and operators who had built and scaled businesses.
Workshops covered fundraising, financial modelling, and cap table management, but what stood out was the lived experience behind the teaching.
It was not theory. It was reality. And that changed how it landed.
“Entrepreneurship can be incredibly lonely. To be placed with other founders who are in a similar position is invaluable.”
Beyond tools and frameworks, the biggest shift was internal. Julian describes learning not to fear the volatility that comes with building a business.
Hearing from ex-founders who spoke openly about failure, pivots and persistence reframed what resilience actually looks like in practice.
It was not about avoiding challenges. It was about getting stronger through them. That perspective reshaped how Julian leads the business today. And it also reshaped confidence.
Being surrounded by other founders facing similar pressures created something powerful: perspective.
“When issues and challenges are shared, it gives me confidence to know I am human, because other people are facing similar things.”
That sense of shared experience, Julian says, increased their confidence tenfold.
Coming out of Immerse, something had shifted. Not just motivation, but clarity. Clarity on what Yendy Skin is, what it is not, and where it needs to go next. That sharper focus quickly translated into results.
The brand delivered a strong Q4, including a successful Black Friday and Cyber Monday period, despite the accelerator running right through the middle of their busiest trading season.
But the most meaningful signal was not just sales. It was efficiency. Yendy Skin achieved those results while spending significantly less on marketing than the previous year.
For Julian, that was the proof point.
“It was a test we wanted to run. And it showed how meaningful our product is to our existing customers.”
In other words, the product was doing the heavy lifting. Customers were not just buying, they were coming back. Now the focus is on expanding that customer base, with confidence that retention will follow acquisition.
Grant funding from the programme added something just as important: breathing room. Julian puts it simply, quoting fellow founder Amma of Plantmade:
“Money buys you time, and time buys you options.”
Receiving funding just after Q4 allowed the business to restock, reinvest in marketing, and stabilise operations heading into the new year.
That stability is now fuelling what comes next, with new products and new partnerships already in motion.
Julian has participated in enough programmes over the years to know what actually matters.
1. Go for the community
Building a business can be isolating. Being surrounded by founders at a similar stage gives you perspective, accountability, and relationships that last far beyond the programme.
2. Lean into the expertise
The value comes from access to investors, operators, and ex-founders who have lived the journey. Ask questions and go deeper.
3. Take the funding seriously
Even small injections of capital can shift trajectory for a product-based business. Treat the opportunity as real leverage.
4. Show up anyway
Even in your busiest season, especially then. Julian did the programme during Q4 and says it was worth every hour.
“I would attribute a strong percentage of Yendy Skin’s progress to accelerators and programmes like this over the last four or five years,” Julian says.
“I would highly recommend it.”
Today, Yendy Skin is no longer just building momentum. It is building with clarity.
A proven product. A loyal and growing customer base. And a founder with the confidence to scale what comes next.
