Three High Schoolers Built a Chew-Proof Dog Toy in Entrepreneurship Class: Interviewing Dog Owners at Parks, Packing Orders at the Dining Table, Winning a $20,000 National Pitch Prize and Selling 2,000+ Units in Under a Year
In fall 2021, three juniors at Harker, a private school in San Jose, California, got an assignment in entrepreneurship class: find a problem and build a solution. Arin Jain, Rohan Gorti and Zubin Khera all had dogs, so they asked friends, neighbors and dog owners at parks. The most common complaint: dog toys are expensive and fall apart, ripped to pieces within a day. They built TuffToy: a scented rubber ball inside a fabric skin you can replace on its own. In May 2022, their first 300 units arrived from a factory in China; in June the online shop opened, selling 45 toys in two days, packed at Jain's dining table. In July, in Chicago, they beat student teams pitching apps and tech platforms to win the INCubatoredu National Pitch Competition and a $20,000 prize. By April 2023, TuffToy had sold more than 2,000 units for $24,000 in revenue and landed a $17,000 corporate order. It was a high-school venture: after the three graduated and went to college, the shop stopped operating around late 2024.
Process
To be clear up front: TuffToy was a project three high schoolers built in a school entrepreneurship class. It stayed small, and it didn't last. After the three graduated in 2023 and went to college, the shop stopped operating around late 2024, for reasons that weren't made public. It's included because it walked the full path, from finding a real problem to building a product to selling it, from a starting point almost anyone can copy.
Stage 1: One Assignment, Three Dogs
In fall 2021, at Harker, a private school in San Jose, California, three juniors, Arin Jain, Rohan Gorti and Zubin Khera, ended up in the same class: Honors Entrepreneurship: Startup Incubator I. The assignment was simple: identify a problem and invent a solution.
Their teacher, Michael Acheatel, later recalled that "the only thing they had in common coming into class was that they all had this passion to create a company." Jain and Gorti had known each other since kindergarten.
Their thoughts turned to dogs. Khera had a goldendoodle named Axl, Jain had a goldendoodle named Cosmo, and Gorti had grown up with a Labrador named Dash, who had recently died. Dash, Gorti said, always ripped his toys apart.
Maybe the world needed a better dog toy?
Stage 2: Asking Questions at the Dog Park
They didn't rush to build. They went to ask people first. "We interviewed our friends, our neighbors, people at dog parks, just anyone we could find with a dog, and we asked them, 'What are common issues you have with your dog toys?'" Jain said.
One kind of complaint kept coming up. "The current toys on the market, they're very expensive and they break really easily, so you're stuck in this cycle of buying a dog toy, waiting for your dog to rip it in a day, and buying another," Jain said.
They had their problem. Next came prototypes. Gorti learned to use a sewing machine from his aunt, and they bought rubber balls and puppets online to make a rough first version, the "minimum viable product" in Silicon Valley startup lingo. Then they took it back to dog owners for feedback and kept refining.
One thing they learned: many owners hate squeakers. "We were thinking of putting a squawker inside, but a lot of owners, when they hear that thing going off, it's just annoying," Jain said, especially in the work-from-home era. So they used scent to engage dogs instead.
The final product was TuffToy: a scented rubber ball (peanut butter, beef or vanilla) inside a brightly colored plush fabric skin. The skin is sold and replaced separately, so when it wears out, you don't throw away the whole toy.
The first "tester" was Axl. He didn't even need to see it; he smelled the prototype in the backpack Khera brought home. "Axl literally opened his bag and just stole it," Jain said, and ran around the house with it. Cosmo loved it too.
But was it actually durable? "We tested the toys' durability by giving them right to the user: dogs," Jain said. "We went out to local dog parks and had dogs of different breeds, sizes and ages interact with a TuffToy. The dogs could not tear through the toy."
Stage 3: 300 Units and a Dining Table
Their classmates weren't impressed at first. "They were kind of written off by a lot of their peers, like, 'Oh, you're just doing a pet toy. That's not innovative; that's not Silicon Valley,'" Acheatel said. "But I told them that I was excited because they were going to reach prototyping and commercialization much more quickly."
Finding a manufacturer was another hurdle. At first, Jain said, they were shy and scared to reach out: "The first big confidence booster was when we made a call to a manufacturer, and they actually responded and were happy to help prototype our toy. After making one call, we realized that if we do this ten, fifteen times, we'd have a lot of options on the table."
They ordered 300 units from a factory in China, with some seed money from the school. The toys arrived in May 2022, the online shop opened in June, and they sold 45 in the first two days. The three boxed them up at Jain's dining-room table, and business went so well that the clerk at the local post office soon knew Jain by sight.
Even earlier samples had been packed by hand in their home kitchens, with personalized notes, and dropped off at customers' homes around the Bay Area.
Stage 4: A Dog Toy Beats a Room Full of Apps in Chicago
On June 13, 2022, TuffToy was named one of five finalists in the INCubatoredu National Pitch Competition, run by the education organization Uncharted Learning. The first round required a 10-minute video; the final was a live pitch in Chicago.
That June, while preparing, Gorti drove 30 minutes to Jain's house every day and 30 minutes back, and the two worked for hours on packaging and marketing.
On July 13, the three walked into Chicago's Willis Tower. The other four teams were pitching apps and technology platforms. "We were competing against apps and technology platforms, and what are we? Well, we're a dog toy," Jain said. "There was a sense of doubt amongst our competitors, amongst the audience and amongst the judges."
They were the last team to present. "We were very energetic. We had a lot of puns in our presentation — credit to Zubin there," Gorti said. "Once we finished presenting, everyone started to give us respect because we validated that it's not just a dog toy. It's an innovative dog toy. We had a real problem [and] a real solution."
TuffToy won, along with a $20,000 prize. One of the judges, Uncharted Learning co-founder Michael Miles, said: "It takes a long time to build software and technology. This product was so simple. They already had it made, and they had the ability to make more. We love the idea of our $20,000 going into inventory that can convert into more cash flow that can convert into more inventory... and the snowball effect that comes along with that."
"I don't think any of us were really processing it until the check was physically in our hands," Khera said. "It was an awesome feeling [to walk] around downtown Chicago with this giant check in our hands."
Stage 5: Dog Festivals, the Campus Store and Corporate Orders
After the competition, the three started their senior year, kept running TuffToy and took the next entrepreneurship course.
In September 2022, they set up a booth at Bark in the Park in downtown San Jose, billed as the nation's largest dog festival, and sold more than 100 units. "It helped us understand how to sell to people," Jain said. In October, they ran a booth at the school's Harker Day.
The product line grew, with skins in sports, Monster Mash and holiday designs. According to web archives, at the 2022 launch the Monster Mash set cost $14.99 and a single skin $5.99; by 2023–24 the Monster Mash and Sports sets were $16.99 and a skin $6.99. They also started taking corporate orders, embroidering company names and logos on the skins.
According to an April 2023 Bay Area News Group report, TuffToy had sold more than 2,000 units since launch for $24,000 in revenue: more than 1,000 units to consumers, mostly online, and about 1,250 to corporate customers, including 500 to Harker's campus store. They had put about $7,000 of the prize money back into the company. That same month, TuffToy got into Bay Area pet boutiques and landed a $17,000 order from a Silicon Valley software company: 1,500 toys, each with a ball and two custom skins. That revenue hadn't come in yet and wasn't part of the $24,000. Jain said he couldn't disclose the company's name.
Stage 6: Graduation, and the End of the Project
Their teacher Acheatel put it this way: "They have all the traits of all the successful entrepreneurs. They're resilient — any time they see a roadblock or a hurdle … they just get right into the problem-solving mode. They just have a crazy work ethic, very, very diligent. They see opportunity and they seize it."
Jain described what kept him going: "Whether that's in the form of funding, like that $20,000 we won, or whether it's just when you see today, 10 people ordered TuffToy toys, that's the feeling that keeps us motivated... whether it's big or small, it just feels good, because it's yours."
In 2023, the three graduated and went to college. Web archives show that by December 2024, the Monster Mash and Sports sets were marked sold out; the shop then stopped operating, and its old web address has since been taken over by someone else. TuffToy never grew into a big company, but it walked the whole beginning of a small business.
Gorti's words may be the best summary: "Don't be afraid of failing. We didn't know where we were going with a dog toy for a while. We failed at everything, and eventually [everything] came together. Even if TuffToy didn't work, we would have all come out of this with a lot more knowledge than we would have if we didn't do it."
And one more: "My only thing is I just wish Dash would've gotten to play with a TuffToy."
Thinking
1. Good problems come from asking people, not from imagining. They didn't sit in class guessing what dog owners wanted; they went to dog parks and asked. "Expensive and not durable" came straight from real users.
2. The simpler the product, the faster the market feedback. Classmates said it wasn't "Silicon Valley" enough, but a simple product reached prototypes and production fast. By competition time they had real sales, while many app teams were still in development.
3. Users will tell you what not to build. A squeaker sounds like a dog-toy staple, but owners found it annoying. Dropping it for scent was a decision that came from feedback.
4. A replaceable design is itself a selling point. Dogs usually destroy only the outer layer. Selling the ball and skin separately solves "throw it all away when it breaks" and gives customers a reason to come back for new skins.
5. Don't rely on one channel. The online shop, festival booths, the campus store, pet boutiques and corporate orders each contributed. A single corporate order meant a thousand-plus units.
6. Student projects have an end point. TuffToy didn't continue once the three went to college. It's a reminder that whether a small business lasts depends on someone continuing to put in the time.
Action
1. Take a question to users. Pick a group you know, like pet owners or parents, and ask directly: "What's the most common problem you have with X?" Write down the complaints that keep repeating.
2. Prototype as cheaply as possible. Buy off-the-shelf materials online, put together a working version yourself, give it to real users and improve it based on their feedback.
3. Order small and sell first. Your first batch doesn't need to be big; a few hundred units is enough. Sell through an online shop and the channels around you to see whether people will pay.
4. Call factories yourself. The first call is the hardest. Once one works, contact several more and compare price and responsiveness.
5. Find places to sell face to face. Pet festivals, markets and school events let you hear customer reactions directly and earn your first word of mouth.
6. Try corporate custom orders. If your product can carry a logo, ask companies whether they want it for employee gifts or event merch. One corporate order can equal months of retail.