If there’s power in numbers, then participation in an accelerator or retail mentorship program can be powerful for beauty brand founders facing the isolation, resource and manpower limitations, and dizzying array of unknowns that often come with entrepreneurial existences. These programs gather startups together to benefit from shared lessons, careful examinations of their businesses, and the expertise of accelerator leaders and advisors. “What an accelerator does is gets you to focus on how you can do more faster and really accelerate in every sense of the word,” says Danielle Cohen-Shohet, co-founder and CEO of GlossGenius, and a veteran of Sephora Accelerate and Techstars. “Being part of that culture and community, you iterate a lot, do more faster, and cut out the ways you were wasting time.” To make sure beauty brand founders aren’t wasting time pursuing accelerator and retail mentorship initiatives, Beauty Independent chatted with about a dozen alumnae of these programs to understand what it’s like to apply to and attend them, and achieve results from the experience.