Finn Moynihan’s brow furrows as he considers the task in front of him. As part of the Start-up Survival competition, Moynihan, a senior from North Kingstown High School, and his team of nine other high school students — most of whom he’s just met — have been tasked with creating a company that could go toe-to-toe with international giant Delta Air Lines.

It’s a big task, and they only have an hour to do it.

“How much is our budget?” Moynihan asks tentatively.

When he’s informed that they don’t have to draft one, they just have to be prepared to justify their decisions, his mood lightens.

“Why don’t we go all out, then?” he asks, infused with new energy.

Skills in high demand
Start-up Survival, hosted by Bryant University’s chapter of the Collegiate Entrepreneurs’ Organization, brought together more than 100 high schoolers from Moses Brown, Barrington High School, Smithfield High School, William E. Tolman Senior High School, North Kingstown High School, and Scituate High School.

The competition is designed to inspire high school students to think differently and go big, notes Tyler Griffin ’25, president of Bryant CEO. Each team was charged with creating a company that could dethrone an industry leader, from Apple to Uber to Netflix.

“I wish I had this when I was in high school,” Griffin says with a laugh. “We all can’t wait to see what they come up with.”

Bryant CEO had hosted previous iterations of Start-up Survival, but the practice had gone into hiatus with the COVID-19 pandemic. After talking with teachers from different high schools, Griffin was convinced it was time for a comeback.  

He found there was an even bigger appetite for the competition, as more and more schools caught wind of the event, held in in Bryant’s Heidi and Walter Stepan Grand Hall.

“I would have been thrilled with even half of this,” he confides. “One of the schools isn’t even in session today; the team came here on their day off.”

Making it work
After a brief welcome and introduction, Griffin lays out the assignment and wishes the teams luck.

Then it’s up to them.

Things are awkward at first; the teams have been arranged so that students from different schools are required to work with one another. But as they get down to business, they begin to gel. Hanna Heidari, also a member of the team created to take down Delta — they quickly dub their fledgling business “Skyluxe” — takes a leadership position, helping her teammates find areas to work on that correlate to their strengths and interests.

As leaders emerge, conversation does as well, with the students abandoning their initial shyness to work together and trades insights and ideas. (Later on, those bonds are reinforced by the timeless ritual of trading items from the event’s boxed lunches.)

“Think about the things you’ve never seen before — but want to.” 

Across the room, another team works on Tesla killer, Energize Motors. While one side of the table focuses on the engineering of their product, including logistics like battery manufacturing, the other decides on marketing strategy.  

“And we’re going to hire designers that make sure it looks better than the Cybertruck,” a team member affirms.

In real time, they create, revise, and start again, working through dozens of iterations together as the ideas fly fast and furious.

A half-dozen Bryant CEO members serve as advisors throughout the event, providing pointers for the brainstorming process but letting the high schoolers make their own choices and breakthroughs. International Business major Anna Boranian ’27 moves from table to table, encouraging the high schoolers to think bigger at every stop. “Think about the things you’ve never seen before — but want to,” she tells them.

Another mentor, Sean Nelson ’27, a Global Supply Chain Management student and an entrepreneur himself — he owns the sneaker resale business “The Sole Provider” — likens the competition to Bryant’s own Innovation and Design Thinking for All (IDEA) program, a three-day innovation bootcamp for first-year students. It’s just a lot faster, he adds with a laugh. “The things they’re learning today, brainstorming, presentation making, all of it — that’s huge for any industry,” he says. “Even if they don’t start their own business. They’re still going to need to be creative and work with others.”

The fast and the fantastic
At the end of the hour, a red clock ticks down the final seconds on the hall’s giant screen as the competitors race to finalize and review the finishing touches before they deliver a three-minute pitch to judges Charlie Billard, the president and CEO of Billard & Company Business Consultants, and Vincent Emery ’26, president of Bryant’s Student Government and co-founder and COO of The Lil’ Rhody Coffee Company.

For the better part of an hour, the students present their wildest innovations. Towards the end, it’s Hex’s turn.  Over the course of just a few minutes, the students describe a simple LEGO competitor evolved into a lifelong STEM learning tool as well as a fun creative pursuit.

From scholarships for gifted builders to making entertaining science lessons in a box part of the classroom experience, Hex paints an imaginative and intriguing business plan, and sees heads nod throughout the room — even their competitors are forced to admit they’d love to give the for-now hypothetical construction kits a try.

It’s no surprise, then, that Hex’s team members take home bragging rights for the competition.

Their tagline is especially appropriate, for both the company and the day: “When innovation clicks,” Mason Tokarz, a student at Moses Brown shares proudly.