Yes Gurl:
Ending Loneliness,
One Friendship at a Time
Summary
Before Yes Gurl was co-founded, it began as a simple online magazine by Anette, a vibrant corner of the internet celebrating everyday women, creativity, culture and honest conversations. But something bigger was happening beneath the surface. The magazine was attracting women who weren’t just looking for content, they were looking for real connection.
During and after the COVID years, when loneliness became a silent epidemic for young women everywhere, Annette and her co-founder Francesca witnessed something powerful: women wanted friendship, community, belonging. They wanted a space where they didn’t feel alone.
So Yes Gurl grew, not into a brand, but into a movement. Today, it is a friendship-first platform and community that helps women meet, connect, and build meaningful relationships both online and in real life.
"We’ve built a community of 8,000+ women, regularly host in-person events, and have collaborated with brands such as BOXPARK, Gymshark, and Glamour Magazine, all while raising £10,000 in grant funding to help build our friendship app. This wouldn’t have been possible without the foundation we received from BLP."
- Annette and Francesca
Journey to Entrepreneurship
When Annette and Francesca first launched Yes Gurl, they had no intention of building an app or a movement. They were simply two young women who wanted to create a space online where everyday girls could see themselves reflect their joys, their style, their thoughts, the little things that make womanhood what it is. The online magazine they created began to gather attention, not because of glossy perfection, but because it felt real.
But as the pandemic came and went, something unexpected began to happen. Their inboxes filled with messages from women who loved the magazine not just for the content, but because it made them feel less alone. Women wrote about struggling to make friends as adults. About moving to new cities. About wanting community but not knowing where to find it. About loneliness that felt too heavy to say out loud.
Annette and Francesca realised that Yes Gurl was touching something far deeper than they had planned. The world had changed, and young women were craving connection and intentional friendship.
They asked themselves a simple question: What if Yes Gurl could become that space?
So the magazine grew into gatherings. Gatherings grew into events. Events grew into a community. And slowly, Yes Gurl became a home for women who were looking for friends, not followers. A place where women turned up alone and left with someone’s number saved in their phone. A place where laughter wasn’t curated, it was shared.
And once they saw the impact, they took a leap. They imagined a tool that would help women find friendship the same way they themselves found each other, through compatibility, personality, and honesty. That idea became the earliest spark of the Yes Gurl app.
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Annette and Francesca's BLP Experience
When Annette and Francesca joined Business Launchpad, they were at a crossroads. They had a community that was growing faster than they expected, and an idea that was bigger than anything they had ever tried to build. But they didn’t yet have the roadmap or the confidence to turn that idea into a fully-fledged business.
The six-month free programme at BLP became a grounding moment for them. It was the first time they were able to step back and look at Yes Gurl not just as something they loved, but as something with real potential. With the support of mentors who understood the pressures of running a mission-led business, they began shaping Yes Gurl into a sustainable platform.
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For Annette, the most powerful part of BLP wasn’t the technicalities, though the workshops, business planning and strategy sessions were essential. What mattered most was the belief. The feeling of being surrounded by people who didn’t just understand her vision, but respected it. People who saw the heart behind Yes Gurl and encouraged the founders to lead with that heart.
At the end of the programme, Annette and Francesca pitched their idea that had carried them through every late night and early morning. They received funding to build the app, a moment Annette describes as the shift from “maybe we can” to “we absolutely will.”
BLP didn’t just help Yes Gurl grow. It helped Annette step into her voice as a founder, someone who believed that connection deserves a home, and that women deserve spaces where they feel seen, supported and celebrated.
Today, every friendship formed through Yes Gurl carries a little piece of that journey.
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