PitchTankBuilt by a student who wanted somewhere to pitch.
PitchTank is a student-run organization that helps young innovators develop, pitch, and launch their business ideas in front of local investors.
- 100+
- students pitched at PitchTank
- Best Pitch
- LaunchX Demo Day, for PrivaSeat
- 4×
- Odyssey of the Mind World Finalist
- Finance
- Intern, Internova Travel Group
Meet the founder
Abhinav Pentyala
Founder & President · John P. Stevens High School, Edison, NJ
“As a high school student with a passion for entrepreneurship, I saw the potential and creativity of my peers. I also saw that many young innovators lacked the resources and support to bring their ideas to life. So I founded PitchTank with a simple mission: help fellow young entrepreneurs turn their visions into reality.”
Abhinav is a senior at John P. Stevens High School in Edison, NJ, with a passion for business, entrepreneurship, and finance. He founded PitchTank in January 2024 after seeing how many classmates had great ideas and nowhere to take them. He built it from scratch: recruiting local business owners as the shark panel, running the workshops and competitions, managing partnerships, and leading the team behind it. More than 100 students have pitched through PitchTank so far.
Outside PitchTank, he founded Two Jeans, a youth-led sustainable fashion movement with student representatives in six U.S. states and five countries and a partnership with GreenDrop that redistributes donated clothing to shelters and refugee centers. At LaunchX, the entrepreneurship program founded at MIT, he built PrivaSeat, a foldable seat divider for transit riders that brought in nearly $1,000 in its first weeks and won Best Pitch at Demo Day.
- Founder & President, PitchTank2024 to now
- Founder, Two Jeans2025 to now
- Finance Intern, Internova Travel Group, NYC headquarters2026 to now
- Head of Youth Ambassadors, JP Stevens DECA2026 to now
- Advisory Board Member, National Young Leaders Association2024 to now
- Author, Teen BizCase, the interview series on this site
- Founder, Best Pitch winner, PrivaSeat at LaunchX (MIT-founded)2025
- 4× World Finalist, Odyssey of the Mind2021 to now
Teens are natural builders.
Young people are natural ideators and builders. Steve Jobs called people tool builders, pointing out that a person on a bicycle beats the peregrine falcon at efficiency of movement. Human beings keep changing the world through relentless creativity.
At PitchTank, we believe that if we, as teens, are passionate about what we want to create, we can make a real impact. PitchTank is here to support young innovators in making that impact and turning their entrepreneurial ideas into reality.
How a season works
- 1
Learn
Join our virtual sessions on how a pitch works, what investors listen for, and how to size up an idea.
- 2
Build
Turn your idea into a business plan: the problem, the customer, the money, and the first steps.
- 3
Pitch
Present to a panel of local business owners and investors, our sharks, and take their questions live.
- 4
Win
Selected founders receive cash prizes to start building, and every student leaves with real feedback.
The executive board
Satvik Daram
Executive Board Member
A student at John P. Stevens High School with a passion for engineering and business. Satvik joined PitchTank to connect students with real business owners and help them take the first step toward success. He also helped start Starboard, a student rocketry team, and plays music to unwind.
Akram Razak
Executive Board Member
A student at John P. Stevens High School who hopes to build a career in business. Akram joined the board to help students who see starting a business as difficult, or impossible, put their good ideas to work.
Business leaders behind us
Azeem Subhani
CEO & Founder, TEU Global
TEU Global is a logistics and supply chain company based in Piscataway, NJ. Over two decades, Azeem has built it into a globally recognized brand known for reliable, customer-centric service.
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