They might be ready for Shark Tank. 

Three Barrington High School freshmen recently pitched their startup business idea and earned a top-five finish in the Lieutenant Governor’s Entrepreneurship Challenge.

Barrington High School’s Sid Gupta, Liam Helfrich and William Sturla captured fifth place for their business idea, “Community Connections,” and won a $1,000 scholarship.

Dozens of students from across the state submitted business pitches as part of the contest, but only a handful of those submissions were chosen for the final round of live presentations. In fact, Gupta, Helfrich and Sturla were the only freshmen to reach the finals. 

Standing in front of the judges and a large audience, Gupta, Helfrich and Sturla offered their pitch for “Community Connections,” a hyper-local service marketing platform for teenagers. 

Helfrich opened the presentation by asking the judges if they had ever needed to mow their lawn, move some boxes or wash their car, but just not had the time? Helfrich said people no longer needed to hire a professional service for an exorbitant rate, or struggle to find a teenager in their neighborhood who was willing to do the work. 

(Helfrich said studies have shown that the number of teens working in the United States has decreased by nearly 50 percent over the last 20 years.) 

Community Connections, he said, offers an online platform where teenagers can find work nearby, and homeowners can hire local teens. 

Sturla said Community Connections will benefit neighborhoods, teenagers and homeowners. In addition to bringing neighbors together, the service will also handle all the marketing challenges for teenagers who are looking for work, offer a more affordable rate for services to homeowners, and vet those using the service so that it is safe for everyone. 

“We want to emphasize the community aspect,” Sturla told judges. 

Sturla said the Community Connections service will collect its money through a 10 percent charge to those looking to hire a teenager.

Gupta offered a detailed breakdown of the differences between their Community Connections service and those that already exist online. He also said the business was extremely scalable and did not face the challenge of needing to maintain inventory. Gupta said the business’s break-even mark was when it had 390 adults using the website. 

Judges had a few questions for the Barrington High School students — what about liability issues? Additional costs associated with taxes? And ensuring that the service was safe for both the teenagers and the homeowners?

Helfrich, Gupta and Sturla responded to each query with informed answers. 

The strong showing earned the three BHS freshmen a fifth-place finish, and praise from the judges. Gupta, Helfrich and Sturla were the only freshmen to reach the finals — all other finalists in the competition were high school seniors.

RI Lieutenant Governor Sabina Matos was also impressed. 

“Wow, this is amazing,” she said following the Community Connections presentation. “I am so happy I am not one of the judges. You’re going to have a difficult task today…”

Lt. Gov. Matos congratulated all the students who participated. 

“I am deeply proud of today’s contestants, all of whom made compelling and interesting presentations,” Lt. Gov. Matos said. “I hope that, in addition to the scholarships they won, our students have come away more enthusiastic than ever about becoming entrepreneurs. Today showed that the future of Rhode Island’s small business community is bright!”