founder focus: meet the founder of mind the skin labs

Audrey Ajakaye is the kind of founder who makes you feel like you have been underestimating what is possible in a semester.

She grew up in Houston, went to international school, and says being around people from everywhere shaped how she thinks about building products that work for more than one “default” customer. She is now a senior at Penn studying Health and Societies, focused on healthcare markets and finance. At the same time, she is building in one of the categories people love to call “hard” right now: regulated consumer healthcare.

She is also not doing it alone. Audrey’s team setup already feels real in a way that is unusual for someone still in school. Her cofounder is her mom, who has a science background and has been with her from the beginning, especially on product and R&D decisions. The team has expanded recently with many additional hires. From the outside, it does not look like a student project. It looks like an early-stage company getting ready to scale.

She is building Mind The Skin, and it exists because Audrey has lived with eczema for most of her life. Mind The Skin is a patch designed to support people before a flare, during a flare, and after a flare. The brand frames itself as the first dermatologist-tested patch system built specifically around the eczema flare cycle, and it leans heavily into being steroid-free, clinically tested, and pediatrician approved. The idea is to give people a cleaner, more usable option when the standard routine of thick creams and steroids stops working or starts to feel unsustainable.

Hearing how she is building her business was very fascinating on all ends and before speaking to Audrey, I felt like there were so many hurdles she probably had to overcome to build the product and sell it. Firstly manufacturing (which gets pricey) and also the regulatory aspect of selling a product that is claimed as a “medical device”.

She has partnered with a facility in South Korea to manufacture her products, which Audrey sees as a global center of skincare innovation and one of the few places with the technical depth to support what she wanted to build. The patch system required a specialized manufacturer, not a general skincare lab. She told me it took almost a year just to get the manufacturer to respond to her. They had never produced an eczema patch system like this before, but eventually, they brought her into an R&D pilot. What followed was months of iteration and over time, they landed on a system she felt could actually deliver on the vision. 

Because Mind The Skin uses multiple patch materials, each with different regulatory implications, she had to be thoughtful about how the product was designed and classified. She ran required stability and safety testing through third-party labs to ensure the patches were safe, effective, and shelf stable, including studies on sensitive and eczema-prone skin and on children. The testing was overseen by both a dermatologist and a pediatrician. Beyond meeting regulatory requirements, she also validated the product clinically and commercially through at home studies, global patient surveys, and direct feedback from dermatologists, making sure Mind The Skin could be safely used, credibly recommended, and realistically integrated into real treatment routines.

Mind The Skin is a consumer brand, but it is not relying on consumer alone. Audrey told me the company has been getting inbound interest from dermatologists and clinics precisely because the format is unfamiliar. She already has pilots lined up in both New York and the Los Angeles area.

Distribution-wise, she is thinking in layers that feel much closer to healthcare than traditional skincare. HSA and FSA eligibility is a major priority because customers ask for it constantly, and the medical-device framing makes that channel feel natural. She is also exploring specialty pharmacies as a stepping stone before any large retail expansion, while continuing to show up where the eczema community already gathers, including conferences and patient-focused events. On the consumer marketing side, instead of chasing expensive influencer deals, she is leaning into gifting creators who genuinely have eczema and want to talk about it. 

Audrey is not anti-venture. She is just cautious! 

She has bootstrapped so far and prioritized non-dilutive funding where possible. Her background in venture and student investing has shaped how she thinks about timing. She has seen founders dilute too early, lose control, and end up fighting their own boards before they even understand their customers. 

Getting to talk to Audrey was a pleasure. She is driven, excited about her product, and is thinking about everything with such sharpness. I may be biased to love the ethos behind the brand because I wanted to be a dermatologist for so long, but this product is unlike any other in the market. I also think it’s very lovely to see a mother-daughter duo building a business together. Seriously, that's rare! Audrey will be a superstar and I am wishing this launch of Mind The Skin the absolute best! You can preorder on their website now: mindtheskinlabs.com