Online doesn’t make it easier. It makes you sharper.

In person, students grow independence.

Online, students grow discipline.

You don’t need to leave home to launch and lead a startup in the real world.

‍

Leangap Online is an international startup program for high school students who want more than a summer class. From home, you’ll work with ambitious teens across countries and time zones, build a real company, and be forged by the kind of work real founders do every day.

‍

This is not “entrepreneurship theory on Zoom.” This is pressure, teamwork, communication, selling, building, and execution when nobody is standing over your shoulder.

‍

Leangap Online is for you if you want to...

Train like a remote-first founder

The world has changed. Many of today’s best companies are built by teams working across cities, countries, and continents. Leangap Online gives you early experience in that work-from-home reality.

Experience an elite U.S. program for ambitious international students

Building with an international team pushes you to communicate better, think bigger, and adapt faster. It exposes you to different ways of solving problems and gives you the kind of global startup experience most teens do not get until much later.

This is not just online. It is international by design.

Strengthen your college application

A strong application shows more than academic performance. Admissions officers look for students who take initiative, solve real problems, and follow through. At Leangap Online, you do exactly that by building and launching a real startup alongside an international team.

Have a flexible schedule with a serious commitment

Leangap Online gives you more flexibility, but not less intensity. Live sessions create the structure. The rest of the day is for founder work: meeting with your team, talking to users, refining your product, getting mentor feedback, and moving the company forward.

So yes, it is convenient. Yes, you can join from home. Yes, it fits a modern, remote-first lifestyle.

But make no mistake: this is still a full-commitment experience for teens who want real growth.

You’ll pitch like a real founder‍, building the kind of online presence modern leaders need.

Leangap® '26 Program

Online

last seats! 🔥

sold out 🥺

Join from anywhere

Start date:

June 15, 2026

end date:

July 10, 2026

duration:

4 weeks (+2 weeks of early prep)

schedule:

Classes 8 AM to 11 AM PST. Teamwork throughout the day. Full-time commitment.

Are you looking for a way to get into the startup world? You are no longer alone in this journey. Join us from anywhere!

🎓 Curriculum taught by experienced entrepreneurs
🤝 Mentorship by entrepreneurs in all timezones
🎉 Group recreational activities
👥 Join from anywhere
🌍 Internationally renowned speakers
⏰ Flexible schedule

Apply for Summer 2026

What you’ll learn and do at Leangap Online

Week 1: validation

You’ll start by stepping into the pace and pressure of a real startup environment. From day one, you’ll be pushed to think bigger, move faster, and challenge your assumptions about what high school students can build.

Each student will pitch an idea, and the group will vote on the strongest ones. The top concepts will become the foundation for new teams. From there, you’ll begin working like a remote startup team: aligning quickly, dividing responsibilities, and shaping your idea into a validated proof of concept with mentor support.

Week 2: Creation

Once your team has direction, you’ll refine the idea by talking to potential users and customers. You’ll learn how to gather useful feedback, test assumptions, and make better decisions based on what the market actually wants.

Then your team will begin building an MVP. With guidance from mentors, you’ll turn your concept into something real that people can see, use, and respond to. You’ll also work on branding, design, and messaging so your company looks credible, communicates clearly, and is ready to launch online.

Week 3: Traction

This is where your startup gets tested in the real world.

Your team will move into execution mode: getting your product in front of people, refining your outreach, and learning how to create momentum. You’ll work on the skills that matter for remote building: communicating clearly, staying accountable, and following through as a team.

You’ll also learn how to market your startup, improve your sales process, and reach potential customers in a way that gets results. Whether you’re naturally outgoing or not, this is the week when you learn to push past hesitation and take action.

Week 4: Pitching

In the final week, your team will turn everything you’ve built into a clear, compelling pitch.

You’ll learn how to tell the story of your company, explain the problem you’re solving, and present your traction with confidence. You’ll also practice answering questions the way real founders do: clearly, calmly, and under pressure.

Public speaking is one of the most valuable skills you can build, and Leangap Online gives you real practice in it. By the end of the program, you won’t just be more comfortable presenting—you’ll be able to communicate your ideas with the confidence of someone who has actually built something.

Demo Day

You did the work. Now it’s time to present it.

On Demo Day, teams pitch their startups to a panel of investors, founders, CEOs, and technologists in front of a live audience. This is your chance to show what your team built, what traction you earned, and how far you pushed the idea in just a few weeks.

Teams are judged on product-market fit, traction, market opportunity, and pitch quality.

One team will earn the title of Most Outstanding Company, and another will be recognized with the Best Pitch award.

How Leangap Online goes beyond class sessions

Students take part in structured activities designed to strengthen team bonding, support mental health, and make the remote experience more connected, social, and memorable.

Online

Real Traction

Traction means real results that show actual demand: sales, sign-ups, and downloads. Not “would buy” answers. Not hypothetical pre-sales. Not survey feedback with no action behind it.

Even online, every Leangap team gains real traction. Whether that looks like hundreds of app downloads or hundreds of dollars in sales, the result is real.

That means every team leaves with proof of real traction and real-world impact.

[data-wf-bgvideo-fallback-img] { display: none; } @media (prefers-reduced-motion: reduce) { [data-wf-bgvideo-fallback-img] { position: absolute; z-index: -100; display: inline-block; height: 100%; width: 100%; object-fit: cover; } }

Online

Team Challenges

Building a startup remotely requires trust, communication, and strong teamwork. That is why Leangap Online includes team-based challenges that push students to collaborate, think strategically, and earn rewards that can help move their startups forward.

These competitions make the remote experience more dynamic while giving teams more chances to bond outside regular startup work.

Online

Game Nights

Leangap Online creates real friendships, not just project teams.

Through Game Nights, students connect in ways that feel natural and fun for an online program. Whether it is video games, movie nights, drawing games, or other virtual activities, these moments help students relax, laugh together, and build stronger relationships across screens.

By the end of the summer, many students feel surprisingly close to teammates and friends they met online.

Online

Mental Health

A high-growth experience should also come with real support.

That is why Leangap Online includes weekly mental health sessions with a licensed psychotherapist, along with on-demand one-on-one support. Students have space to talk through stress, build confidence, develop resilience, and learn healthier ways to handle pressure.

This support matters even more in a remote setting, where students are balancing intense challenges from home. The goal is not just performance, but growth in a healthy, sustainable way.

With Leangap® Online, students grow by doing what real founders do: adapting

Leangap Online is built on the same kind of challenge we ask students to take on.

When the pandemic hit, Leangap had to step outside its comfort zone and adapt fast. If we had not evolved, Leangap would not exist today. That experience shaped how we think about entrepreneurship: the people who grow are the ones who adjust, stay resilient, and keep moving when conditions change.

Since 2020, our team has been committed to building the strongest remote startup experience possible for students around the world, drawing on everything we’ve learned from running the program since 2015.

By launching a startup remotely, students develop the same qualities real founders need: discipline, resilience, communication, and the ability to perform when conditions aren’t perfect. The result is an experience that helps students grow in ways colleges, employers, and future teammates notice.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Leangap | Teen Entrepreneurs Summer Program (@leangap)

annie long, Leangap Class of 2021

82% intern at major tech companies.

65% get admitted to top-rated colleges.

Ujjawal Prasad, Leangap Class of 2021

rohan pandey, Leangap Class of 2018

Jessie LEE, Leangap Class of 2024

Our mentors know how to lead from anywhere

Leangap Online is supported by experienced entrepreneurs, engineers, marketers, designers, therapists, and student support staff who know how to bring out the best in students. Many of them thrive as digital nomads, leading teams from around the world. That means students are guided by people who do not just understand remote work in theory—they live it every day.

Gemma

Busoni

Co-founder at Discovr Labs, Forbes 30 under 30, Thiel Fellow. She has an EdTech background having previously founded an educational nonprofit. Former research associate at CalTech.

Kaeya

Majmundar

While in college, Kaeya got a deal on ABC’s “Shark Tank” with a prototype for her first product, BZbox. She is now the founder of a venture-backed startup disrupting e-commerce.

Sadok

Cervantes

Sadok is a TEDx speaker and one of FastCompany Magazine's "Most Innovative People". He also received the Best Mobile Innovation award at the Mobile World Congress.

Oliy

Barrett

Oliy started his first company as a teenager, which grew to over 6 million monthly users. He is the Co-Founder of Rythm, a social music listening platform with over 30 million users.

More than staff, your support system

At Leangap Online, our staff is not just here to run the program. They are here to support you throughout it.

All key staff go through a rigorous vetting process that includes background and reference checks. We take trust, safety, and student support seriously, so families can feel confident that capable, responsible people are guiding students in a structured online environment.

Don’t spend the summer watching other people build

We know growth takes time. Mistakes, uncertainty, and setbacks are part of the process, especially when you are building something real. Our job is to help students work through those moments, stay grounded, and keep moving forward.