The Startup Club

Four high school students. One company. One AI that has to work the first time it matters. Maya writes the code. Liam runs the strategy. Chloe designs the experience. Noah tells the story. They meet at the kickoff for the National Youth Innovation Competition and walk out as a four-person team they did not know they were looking for. They form The Startup Club, build a real company called NovaTech, and name what they are building Catalyst, an AI for the rare pediatric neurological disorders that go undiagnosed for years while children wait.
One of those children is Maya's cousin Rosa. She is twelve. She has been waiting for three. Catalyst is the platform Maya wishes had existed for Rosa, and building it is harder than any of them expected. There is the equity split that almost ends the partnership before it starts. The clinician tester who shows them their AI is quietly underdiagnosing patients with darker skin. The data crash that wipes five days of training off the calendar.
The polished, well-funded rival that rebrands itself overnight as Chronos Diagnostics. The angel investor who tells them not to disappoint her, then asks them to triple the scope. And the shortcut that would save the demo and might also break everything they came to build. Underneath all of it sits the question that keeps showing up at the kitchen table at midnight: what are they willing to ship, and what are they willing to ship it without?The Startup Club is a smart, generous, fast coming-of-age novel about ambition, friendship, and the uncomfortable distance between speed and integrity.
It is for readers who liked the team chemistry of The Inheritance Games and the multi-character heart of Far From the Tree, and for any teenager who has ever wanted to build something real. Eight months. One presentation. The four of them, and the choices that turn a competition entry into a company that means something. A portion of every sale is donated to the Kids Future Fund.