Yara and Sumaiya on confidence, start-ups, and just going for it

Posted on: 18 June 2026 in Student experiences

Sumaiya is a University of Liverpool graduate, founder of Kendu and part of the University’s enterprise community. Yara is a final-year Marketing student who joined Kendu as an intern through our LEEP programme.Together, they talk about building confidence, trying things before they feel perfect, and why real experience can change how you see yourself.

Let’s start with you both. Tell me a little bit about yourselves.

Yara: I’m from London, born and raised. I come from a mixed heritage, so my dad is Lebanese and my mum is Colombian. I’ve lived in Liverpool for about three years now and I love every second of it. I love the city. Maybe after London, second best city in the world!

I’m a big foodie. One thing somebody needs to know about me is I love matcha and I love coffee, and I don’t care how expensive it is, I will spend my money. I’m very bad when it comes to food. I will spend, spend, spend. I don’t care because food makes me happy.

I also love make-up and beauty. Again, make-up and beauty are in my top favourite things. I go to Space NK and I don’t buy anything, I just walk around the shop because I love being surrounded by all the products. It’s actually really bad. Same with Sephora.

And I have a dog, Max, back in London. He’s my baby. He’s the cutest thing ever. I’ve never loved an animal more than I love my dog. I would die for my dog, okay, and that’s not an exaggeration.

Sumaiya: I actually grew up in Portugal, and then I moved here when I was around 10 or 11. Liverpool was the first city I came to in the UK, so it is a big part of who I am. Even though I travel a lot, I still love Liverpool. I’d say Liverpool is top city, and then London maybe.

I went to the University of Liverpool to do Electrical Engineering because I loved the city and I wanted to stay here a bit longer. But I also wanted to move out, so I moved near campus to actually feel the student life a bit more.

I love building stuff. I’ve been building stuff since I was about 10. I did competitions and things like that. For my degree, I built a smart mirror, and that’s where my entrepreneurial side came in. For the smart mirror, I had to do customer research, and my customers were women, female fitness, women in tech, women’s hubs basically.

So I started thinking, how can I be a bit creative with this? We started doing Pilates events in cute cafés, and I used that as customer research for my thesis. I really enjoyed the whole business side. When you’re in a technical degree, you don’t always get to play around with the business side, but through that I started exploring it more.

I came to the Career Studio a lot. I met Yenny, Alison and Ben, and they really pushed my entrepreneurial side. I fell in love with it.

So Kendu came from your engineering project, your fitness journey and your enterprise journey?

Sumaiya: Yes, kind of. I feel like we need more females in tech who actually build things and showcase what they’ve made. Even in my degree, there were brilliant girls building stuff, but they weren’t showcasing it because they thought it was too simple, or they wouldn’t get credit for it.

But you need to show off. You need to be like, “Hey, this is me. This is what I’ve built.” Because there will be so many people who fall in love with your product.

Fitness is also a big part of it for me. I grew up medically obese, and I came from an Asian household. When I went to the GP, the doctor was like, “Eat healthy and exercise,” and as a kid I was quite rebellious. I was like, no, I’m not going to do that if you’re going to tell me.

Then lockdown happened, I got bored, and it was one of the best things that happened to me. I started doing YouTube Pilates videos at home, then that became walks, then runs, and I lost around 20 to 25kg. Then I became obsessed with tracking my fitness and my work. Because of my engineering degree, I wanted to blend fitness and tech into one place. That’s where my fitness journey and the idea started connecting.

Right now, I’m loving climbing. I love rock climbing. I’ve been doing it for more than two months and I’d say I’m pretty good. I did my first pull-up as well, so I was proud of that.

You recently did a climbing event with Kendu, didn’t you?

Sumaiya: Yes. We partnered with The Climbing Hangar in Liverpool. They let us have a free climbing session for our community, and we made a whole event side of it. We want to do more sponsored, fun fitness events around Liverpool.

The idea is to get people socialising, making friends and doing fitness. I feel like if you go to a bar or a networking event, it can be quite intimidating to just start talking to someone. But if you’re in a fitness activity, you literally have to do the sport anyway. If you’re struggling, or you see something, you kind of naturally start talking to someone.

So we’re trying to change how sport is seen. It doesn’t have to be intense. It can be friendly. You can make friends. There can be a social side of sport.

Yara: It was my first time climbing. I didn’t know what to expect because I’d never climbed before, but it was fun. Everyone had so much fun. I was doing all the pictures and stuff, and everyone was just smiling. People were talking to each other. It was just nice. I think it would be fun to do more activities in the future.

Yara, what were you studying and how did you connect with Sumaiya?

Yara: I studied Marketing with a Year in Industry. I did my year in industry at Caffè Nero in London as a Marketing Assistant, which was amazing. Three matchas forever. I was part of that campaign every day. They’d be like, “Try this flavour,” and I was like, yes, yes, I’ll try the flavour.

I also got 50% off Caffè Nero every day. I loved it. It was an amazing experience!

But I didn’t know what to expect going into an office. I don’t come from a family that works in offices. My dad was a businessman and my mum was a stay-at-home wife, so I didn’t have anyone with that experience. I was really nervous.
When I first went in, I wasn’t confident. I didn’t know what I was doing there. It was imposter syndrome. I was like, why am I here? There are people better than me. I shouldn’t be here.

Then by the end of it, I realised, no, I’m here for a reason. I did what I did. It built a lot of confidence. It was a hard 10 months because I was battling a lot of insecurities, but it was the best experience.

And then Kendu came from a DM?

Yara: Yes, this is a funny story. When I was doing my placement, I followed Women in Business on Instagram and LinkedIn, and then I saw something about Froppy, which was before Kendu.

I went on the Instagram and I loved it. It was like a girls’ community where you do Pilates and yoga. Trust me, I was fangirling. I was a stalker. It was so bad, but I loved it. So I said to myself, when I go back to uni in September, I’m going to be part of this community. I want to join the yoga, I love yoga, I like fitness.

Then September came and I was like, she hasn’t posted in a long time. At the same time, I really wanted to keep using my marketing skills. I didn’t want to waste a year. I wanted to build more experience.

So it was this random week in September where I was feeling very motivated, and I said, let me just DM her. The worst thing she can say is no. Who cares? Nothing bad can happen from it. So I messaged her and said, “Hey, I’m a marketing student and I’d love to build experience. Would you take me on?” And that’s how we met.

Sumaiya: Yara came in right at the start. Froppy was more of my final-year project, then we moved away from that and started Kendu, which is more unisex. Males and females are both welcome.

She was part of the Run Club, the marketing, the rebrand, the naming of Kendu. We were literally just brainstorming ideas and everything else. She started at the very start.

Then Yenny from the University's Enterprise & Start-Up Team messaged me about the LEEP Interns project, and I was like, wait, we do have someone right now. Yara had literally just started helping with the community. So she went through the application process.

Since the internship started, she’s been really hands-on. Instagram, TikTok, creating, recording, editing, posting, captioning - everything.

How does it feel working together when you’re both from the same university and not too far away in age?

Yara: With Sumaiya, for me, it’s more like a friendship. Of course, we’re both trying to develop Kendu and make it a big community, but I don’t think being from the same university or nearly the same age affects our relationship in a bad way. If anything, it helps us understand our ideas more.

I’m chronically online, and I’ll come with an idea, and she’s so welcoming. She’s not scared of it. She’s like, “Yeah, let’s try it. Why not?”

So maybe age-wise it helps. We’re similar, and it gives me confidence.

At Caffè Nero, I wasn’t like that. I would keep quiet because I was like, they’re the ones with experience, they’re older than me, they know better. But with Sumaiya, because we’re similar and there isn’t that crazy power dynamic, I feel more confident to speak.

Sumaiya: I think sometimes with marketing, we’ll just get it because we’re both in the same kind of algorithm. Right now, because we’re so early stage, the mindset is try everything and fail as fast as possible. If these reels don’t work, we’ll figure out another thing. The marketing strategy is basically try everything until something works, then be consistent with that.

Working with Yara has been fun. She came and said, “Hey, hire me,” kind of thing, which was ballsy, and I really liked that. In meetings, she’s not afraid to speak out or disagree with stuff. You need that, especially at a really early stage.
You need people to come with ideas, disagree with you, challenge you. I think you need to be challenged a lot, and Yara does that for Kendu.

Yara, how different has it been working in a start-up compared to a corporate placement?

Yara: With a start-up, you have a lot more freedom. When it’s an established brand or established business, it’s very hard to change the brand. Some people try and it works, others try and it doesn’t. It’s hard when there is already a customer base and the business has been there for a long time.

With Kendu, because it’s so new, the freedom allows you to do more. If it doesn’t go well, it doesn’t go well. Whatever. We’re still new. We’re still starting. So let’s try again. When it’s a big business and you fail, you feel like there are so many people watching you. You’re like, oh great, this idea failed.

At Caffè Nero, I witnessed that a lot. There was someone young, around my age, and she would come up with fun ideas and they’d get shut down immediately because people were scared of trying something new.
With Kendu, you don’t get that. It’s like, yeah, let’s try it. Why not? I think that builds your confidence because when someone accepts your idea, it makes you feel like, I can do this. I’ve got great ideas. They’re being accepted.

Sumaiya, do you see it as an age thing or more of a start-up mindset?

Sumaiya: I don’t really see age difference as the big thing. I see culture and mindset as the big thing.
There is a start-up mindset. If you talk to any founder, or anyone who is really early in a start-up, they have that drive and passion to experiment and make mistakes. Failing is a big thing that a lot of start-up founders are used to.
I’ve spoken to people in their 30s, 40s and 50s who have that same mindset because when you’ve done it, you’ve seen how much you failed. So when people want to push boundaries, they understand that because they had to push boundaries too.

I don’t think it’s just corporate versus start-up either. It depends on the setting. In my internship, my manager was really nice and I got to experiment with a lot of stuff. We were interns at Amazon, and me and two other guys started ping pong nights. On the last day of the internship, we threw a party in the office.
So it’s not just age. It’s mindset.

But right now, because Kendu is so early stage, we are more on the riskier side. I like to push the riskier side until we know exactly what we want.

Has this experience changed how you think about your career, Yara?

Yara: It has definitely made me want to stay in marketing. I’ve always known I’d love to go into the beauty and make-up industry, so I know the direction I want to go in. But it has made me love marketing more, especially the social media side.

I’ve never really had the opportunity to work on social media properly before. Now that I am doing it with Kendu, I love it. I’d like to do more of this, maybe after I graduate, maybe a social media assistant role or something like that.

I am graduating this summer. I would love to stay in Liverpool. Realistically, though, there are not as many opportunities here, and so I’ll probably have to move back to London.

I am trying to find opportunities in Liverpool. I try to have the mindset that I don’t want to stress myself out. A job will come to me. The right job will come to me. I just let the universe and God take control of that.

I’ve applied to a lot of things. I don’t want to limit myself to just marketing. I’ve applied for PR, communications, events assistant roles, because experience is experience at the end of the day. I feel confident that in any position I get in the future, I have the skills for it. I’ve applied to a few marketing jobs, but I haven’t heard back yet. It’s hard, but I’ll probably get into marketing.

Sumaiya, what has it been like now, being on the other side — as the founder, giving a student this experience?

Sumaiya: It feels good, and I wish there was more of it. Having experiences that you can try out is so important because you don’t get that in your degree, no matter what degree you do. You don’t really get real-life experience in the same way.

I went to a lot of events in my uni life, and I loved internships, but it is hard to find internships now as well. So if the University of Liverpool can find these small start-ups and link them with students, it helps both sides.

Start-ups need help all the time because they’re so small and they don’t always have the budget. So the start-up benefits because we get extra hands, and students benefit because they get experience. And the experience doesn’t just die down after the internship finishes. It carries on. 

If Yara goes into marketing, she will know how to create content, what content works, how to record it, what tools to use, angles, captions, all of that. That is built for the student too.

What have you seen change in Yara since she started?

Sumaiya: I think she’s changed a lot. We’ve been testing so many different formats, and one of the recent videos nearly got 10K views. Seeing that boosts confidence because it shows that what you’re doing is working. But also you’re learning. This doesn’t work, this works, and then you can apply that to graduate roles.

Also, talking to stakeholders. I feel like Yara can go to the next climbing company and say, “Hey, can you sponsor this with us?” We’re pushing her to communicate with people. It’s been a great experience to see her progress.

You also mentioned experimenting with AI and tech in the internship. What did that involve?

Sumaiya: Because we experiment with fitness tech, it was quite cool because we started to experiment more with AI and marketing too. We taught Yara some AI tools for marketing. I don’t know if she did this in her degree.

Yara: No, not really. It definitely sounds new.

Sumaiya: We taught her how to use AI properly. Not just “do this,” but what kind of ideas do you want, how do you make sure the content doesn’t feel AI-generated, how do you add your own tone and brand identity to it.
She’s touched on the tech side, which is rare for someone just doing a marketing degree.

One of my friends works at a start-up as a software engineer, and every week they have sessions with the marketers and teach them how to build things and use tech. So I thought, let me bring that into Kendu as well. Let me train her in this.

Yara: I had read about start-ups teaching employees how to use AI, how to talk to AI, which Sumaiya taught me. Before, I would just be like, “Do this.” Now I understand it a bit more.

Yara, what would you say to younger Yara now?

Yara: I would tell my younger self to breathe. I always stressed myself out. I had imposter syndrome. I always felt like I was never good enough, and this experience proves that I am capable. I am good enough, and I can do what I want to do.

I would always go to my mum and cry and be like, “Mum, I’m not built for this. I don’t know what to do.” And she would say, “One problem, Yara, you want everything to come now, all at once. That’s not how life works. You have to build. You have to get your skills. You have to relax.”

So I’d tell younger Yara: relax. Everything will happen in due time. You’re capable of things. You’re not less than anyone. You’re not stupid. You’ve got this. You’re here for a reason. No one is judging you. Everyone has been in that position where they have to start from somewhere. So just relax, because stress is not going to move us anywhere.

What advice would you give to other students?

Yara: If there’s an opportunity, take it.

I always tell my younger cousins and my brother, if there’s an opportunity, you have to take it because it will make you stand out and help you build confidence and skills.

When you go into the workplace, you’ll be like, I can do this. Even if someone asks you to do an Excel sheet and you’re like, what the hell, I don’t know — you’ll learn. You’ll have the confidence to try.

Before I applied for my placement, I did this free online digital internship with Girls in Marketing. I saw it online and I thought, there’s an opportunity here, why not take it? It will look good and I’ll learn new things.

When I had my interview for Caffè Nero, they brought it up. They said, “Oh, I saw you did Girls in Marketing,” and I was like, yeah, I saw it online and I just went for it. I’m pretty sure they liked it.

So when you see something, go for it. Don’t panic. Apply and see where it goes. That’s what I love about Liverpool. I do think there are great opportunities in this University. I would take every opportunity. If it was free, I would do it.

Sumaiya, what would you add to that?

Sumaiya: You have to believe in yourself. Especially when you’re building something. There are so many run clubs and communities emerging in Liverpool right now, and if you get scared, you’ll quit the next day. We’re not huge yet — not yet — so you constantly have to believe in yourself.

And when you’re hiring your first employees or interns, they need to believe in the same vision as well. Luckily, I got that with Yara.

Sumaiya:Try it, fail, learn, then try something else.

Yara: And breathe.