FaceFlow.AI

INSEAD

Industry: Beauty Tech / AI

MBA Founding Student Name(s): Dhinil Patel & Simon Zhang

Brief Description of Solution: FaceFlow.AI delivers personalised skincare insights and product recommendations tailored to each user’s unique skin profile. Through real-time skin diagnostics and IoT integrations, the platform evaluates key skin characteristics such as texture, tone, and health, offering data-backed advice that typically requires professional dermatological consultation.

FaceFlow.AI aims to make high-quality, science-driven skincare accessible and intuitive, empowering users with a personalised approach to their skincare journey.

Funding Dollars: 30,000 SGD

What led you to launch this venture? The beauty industry has long been dominated by a level of opaqueness, with customers often left to navigate a confusing landscape of skincare products and claims that don’t always deliver on their promises. Both Simon Zhang, my co-founder, and I have worked in the industry. I worked as a the founder of a marketplace for international skincare brands and Simon held the position of a senior machine learning engineer at Shopee. The lack of transparency we observed inspired us to launch FaceFlow.AI with a clear mission: to empower individuals with accurate, personalised insights into their skincare needs, breaking down the barriers that have kept real, science-backed solutions out of reach for many people.

Simon and I bring distinct yet complementary skills to FaceFlow.AI, which has been critical in addressing this challenge. I focus on bridging AI with industry-specific insights in beauty and wellness, ensuring that our platform speaks directly to the concerns of today’s consumers. Simon’s extensive background in machine learning and technical product development has allowed us to build a robust AI model that can deliver precision and efficiency at scale. His expertise in deploying advanced, high-performing AI has been crucial as we tackle the technical complexities of a platform that blends large language models with computer vision.

What has been your biggest accomplishment so far with venture? Our biggest accomplishment so far with FaceFlow.AI has been winning at the 47th edition of the INSEAD Venture Competition. Competing against some of the most innovative ideas and driven teams from the school, this achievement validated our concept and demonstrated the potential of FaceFlow.AI to make a real impact in the beauty industry. The competition provided us with invaluable feedback from experts, professors and seasoned entrepreneurs, allowing us to refine our vision and strengthen our approach to the market.

From a technical perspective. We’ve successfully customised a large language model to become a specialised skincare advisor. This AI understands the complexities of beauty and skincare in remarkable detail, allowing it to analyse user needs and communicate personalised recommendations in a clear, conversational way.

What has been the most significant challenge you’ve faced in creating your company and how did you solve it? One of the most significant challenges we faced was developing a computer vision model that could meet dermatological standards for accuracy while also being user-friendly. In skincare, there’s a fine balance between ensuring the technical rigor needed to provide accurate diagnostics and making the technology accessible for everyday users. Building a model that could deliver professional-grade insights without overwhelming users with complexity required intensive testing and innovation.

Simon’s expertise in model optimisation was essential in refining the AI algorithms and ensuring they met our high standards for performance and precision. Meanwhile, I focused on translating those technical insights into user-friendly features, working to ensure that the interface and experience would feel intuitive for users without sacrificing accuracy. Together, we created an interactive, data-driven experience that’s both powerful and easy to use.

We also engaged in continuous user testing, iterating our design based on real feedback, which allowed us to fine-tune the model in a way that aligned with user needs while meeting our technical goals. Overcoming this challenge has been a rewarding process, pushing us to innovate in ways that are transforming how people engage with their skincare.

How has your MBA program helped you further this startup venture? The MBA at INSEAD has been instrumental in advancing FaceFlow.AI, particularly through the experience of participating in the INSEAD Venture Competition. The competition acted as an accelerator, pushing us to develop and refine our idea at an intense pace, allowing us to transform FaceFlow.AI from concept to a viable business model. The rigorous feedback and guidance from mentors throughout the competition were invaluable, helping us think critically about the market, hone our pitch, and prioritise key features of the platform.

Another significant takeaway was the opportunity to stress-test our relationship as co-founders. Going through the challenges of the competition—working long hours, making high-stakes decisions, and managing the pressure to perform—gave Simon and I a unique chance to build trust and understand each other’s strengths and working styles. It confirmed that we could effectively navigate the inevitable ups-and-downs of a startup journey together, and it cemented our shared vision for the venture.

What founder or entrepreneur inspired you to start your own entrepreneurial journey? How did he or she prove motivational to you? An entrepreneur who has greatly inspired us is Jeff Bezos. Despite coming from a non-technical background in finance, Bezos saw the potential of the internet at its dawn and took a calculated leap by founding Amazon. His journey showed me that a lack of technical expertise doesn’t have to be a barrier to leading a tech-driven venture; instead, what matters is the vision and the willingness to learn as you go.

Bezos built Amazon around the principle of customer obsession, constantly iterating to meet and exceed user expectations. This focus on delivering value is something we keep at the forefront of our approach, especially as we work on making FaceFlow.AI both advanced and accessible. For us, Bezos’s commitment is a reminder that every product decision should serve the user’s needs and make their experience as seamless and impactful as possible.

Which MBA class has been most valuable in building your startup and what was the biggest lesson you gained from it? For both of us, the lessons we learned in ‘Organizational Behavior 1 & 2’ have been invaluable, especially in fostering a collaborative and resilient working relationship. Coming from diverse cultural backgrounds—Simon, raised in Asia between China and Singapore, and myself from London—we gained a deeper understanding of how to navigate our unique perspectives and work styles. These courses taught us how to bridge cultural differences effectively, emphasising the importance of open communication, empathy, and adaptability.

What professor made a significant contribution to your plans and why? One professor who has made a significant contribution to our plans is Professor Anton Ovchinnikov, who taught ‘Foundations of AI for Managers’. His course offered me in particular invaluable insights into the strategic application of AI in business, which helped shape my approach to FaceFlow.AI. Professor Ovchinnikov has continued to be a mentor beyond the classroom, offering guidance and feedback as we navigate the challenges of building an AI-driven startup in the beauty space.

His practical approach to AI has been particularly valuable, helping me understand how to effectively integrate AI into a product that resonates with consumers. His expertise in aligning AI capabilities with market needs has allowed us to think more strategically about how FaceFlow.AI can bring real value to users, not just through innovation but through relevance and accessibility.

How has your local startup ecosystem contributed to your venture’s development and success? 
Singapore’s thriving tech and innovation ecosystem has been instrumental, providing us access to cutting-edge research and a robust support network for AI-driven startups. With its emphasis on digital transformation and support for tech ventures, Singapore has allowed us to leverage resources that support rapid development and innovation, especially in AI. The government-backed initiatives and startup incubators in Singapore have also helped us establish a solid foundation, providing both mentorship and funding opportunities to accelerate our growth.

Paris, on the other hand, offered us unique access to the beauty industry and its key stakeholders. As a global beauty capital, Paris is home to established brands, industry experts, and a wealth of insights into beauty trends and consumer needs. This proximity has been invaluable in helping us build partnerships, gain market insights, and fine-tune FaceFlow.AI to align with industry standards.

Together, these two ecosystems have allowed us to innovate at the intersection of AI and beauty, combining technical expertise with market relevance to create a product that is both advanced and aligned with industry expectations.

What is your long-term goal with your startup? Our long-term goal with FaceFlow.AI is to become a market leader at the intersection of the consumer goods industry and AI, using advanced tools to enhance customer experience and transform the way people engage with skincare and beauty. We aim to set a new standard for personalisation and accessibility, where AI-powered insights enable consumers to make informed, science-backed decisions about their skin health.

As we grow, our focus will remain on continuous innovation and deepening our understanding of consumer needs. We envision FaceFlow.AI not just as a product, but as a platform that integrates seamlessly into users’ lives – both individuals and businesses helping them navigate the complexities of the beauty business with confidence.

Looking back, what is the biggest lesson you wished you’d known before launching and scaling your venture?  Looking back, the biggest lesson is the importance of focusing on the customer from the very beginning. Initially, we were driven by our passion for the technology and our vision for what FaceFlow.AI could accomplish. However, we’ve come to realise that the most meaningful progress happens when we actively build in collaboration with our users, rather than in isolation.

Through this journey, we’ve learned that involving customers in the development process—listening to their feedback, understanding their unique needs, and continuously iterating based on their insights—helps us create a product that truly resonates.

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