Startup Market
In This Section
From brainstorming and budgeting to branding and selling, participants learn by doing as they create products, set prices, greet customers, and experience the excitement of real sales in a safe, supportive environment.
What Makes the Start-Up Market Special
Fast Business Launch
Students create a real product in just one day—simple, fun, and achievable.
Real Customers, Real Sales
Kids sell directly to the public and learn instantly what works.
Creative Product Building
From homemade crafts to 3D-printed items, students experience real-world creation.
Money Management Made Easy
Kids learn pricing, profit, and smart budgeting through hands-on practice.
YEI’s Ohio Pitch Challenge is an exciting pitch contest for Ohio students in grades K-12.
It offers a hands-on experience where students can develop key skills like creativity, problem-solving, critical thinking, and presentation abilities. Through this challenge, students gain essential workforce readiness skills and build a mindset for future careers—whether or not they pursue entrepreneurship.
Students compete in one of three groups by grade level: K-4, 5-8, or 9-12.
Register for the 2026 Ohio Pitch Challenge below.
It’s as easy as 1-2-3:
- Students, individually or in a team, come up with a business idea.
- Students create a video (30-90 seconds) presenting their idea.
- Students should keep the camera on themselves for most of the video—judges need to see and hear them pitch their idea. It should not be slideshow or visuals with a voiceover.
Helpful Hints:
- Practice is key. We do not want to see students reading from a script.
- Be enthusiastic! Viewers will be more interested if students are passionate about their idea.
- If filming on a cell phone, hold the phone horizontally – vertical videos do not work well for this contest.
Timeline
Registration Open: Sept. 15 – Dec. 1, 2025
Videos Due: March 2, 2026
Winners Announced: April 14, 2026
Young Entrepreneur Pitch Challenge is a simple set of activities that help K-12 students learn creativity, problem solving, critical thinking, and presentation skills. Learning the skill of making an elevator pitch allows students to turn problems into opportunities.
What is a Pitch?
A pitch succinctly and enthusiastically explains an idea. It should spark interest, be brief, persuasive, and memorable. Through experience and practice, young people develop this critical workforce readiness skill and a mindset for 21st century careers.
Why participate?
Your students are already problem solvers; they just need a stage. This Program:
- Builds confidence and public speaking skills
- Encourages teamwork and creativity
- Connects academic learning with real-world purpose
- Is easy to to implement with ready-to-use resources
The Toolkit:
The Young Entrepreneur Pitch Challenge toolkit is free and downloadable. It explains how to teach and facilitate a pitch challenge in your classroom or program. Young Entrepreneur Institute offers facilitator training to make the Pitch Challenge engaging and relevant for all the kids you serve.
Everything you need is in the Pitch Challenge Toolkit
Our comprehensive Toolkit provides easy instructions to implement the Challenge in five engaging lessons.
The Toolkit includes interactive worksheets and videos that will guide you through the lessons.
The Toolkit also includes everything your organization needs to launch a Pitch Challenge.
Past Contest Winners
Grades K-4
Grades 5-8
Grades 9-12