From Star Wars to Startups: Why Two LA Seniors Built a Yondr Alternative

At Milken Community School in Los Angeles, the 2024 school year began with a familiar sound: the clicking of magnetic locks. The administration had invested in Yondr pouches: neoprene bags designed to lock away student phones for the day. But almost immediately, the cracks in the system began to show.

Students, as they often do, found workarounds. Some bought high-strength magnets online to pop the locks. Others smashed the pouches open or slid "dummy" devices, old iPods or broken phones, into the bags while keeping their real phones hidden in their pockets. Broken pouches had to be replaced, and teachers lost valuable instruction time policing the hallways.

For most students, this was just a game of cat and mouse. For seniors Brian Ohebshalom and Noah Fakheri, it was a business opportunity waiting to be seized.

The Dynamic Duo

Brian and Noah were not your average high school seniors. Their partnership dates back to the second grade, where they first bonded over a mutual obsession with Star Wars. That childhood friendship quickly evolved into a business partnership.

"We've been entrepreneurs since we were kids," the pair explains. Over the last decade, their ventures have ranged from selling smoothies to classmates to launching a fully realized fashion brand. Unlike many tech co-founders who split duties between "the coder" and "the business guy," Brian and Noah are a true symbiotic unit. They both do everything, blurring the lines between development, strategy, and operations.

The "Aha" Moment

The turning point came at the start of the 2025-26 school year during an entrepreneurship class. The assignment was classic startup curriculum: Identify a problem that faces you every day and create a solution.

They didn't have to look far. The Yondr pouches were universally disliked: cumbersome for the administration and easily bypassed by students. The duo began ideating a digital solution. What if the lock wasn't physical, but digital? What if an app could do what a costly investment in neoprene couldn't?

They called the concept LockedIn.

The Pitch

Brian and Noah didn't wait for a grade on their assignment; they went straight to the top. They approached their Head of School, Dr. Sarah Shulkind, during lunch.

"We walked up to her and started pitching the idea," they recall. "But before we could even get through the introduction, she was finishing our sentences for us."

Dr. Shulkind immediately recognized the potential. She didn't just approve the project; she championed it, connecting the boys with the resources they needed to turn a classroom idea into a campus-wide policy.

The Grind

Building an app that can override a teenager's desire to use their phone, while navigating the strict privacy guidelines of Apple and Google, was a monumental task. The development phase required sacrifices that most high schoolers aren't willing to make.

"We missed a lot of school," they admit. "We pushed back our bedtimes, we saw our friends less, and we worked all day on weekends. Our grades felt it."

The result was a sophisticated piece of software that goes far beyond a simple lock mechanism. LockedIn locks the student's phone during school hours: the apps the school blocks stay locked on campus, and if a student tries a workaround, it is flagged for the administration.

Outsmarting the Smartest Kids

Perhaps the most impressive innovation is how LockedIn handles the "dummy phone" problem. Brian and Noah built LockedIn to flag when a student is trying to trick the system: a new "burner" device needs administrator approval before it counts, and a deleted app or a faked location is flagged for staff.

The results at Milken have been drastic. The administration reports saving "a ton of hassle." The expensive cycle of buying and repairing Yondr pouches is over, and the tedious spot-checks are a thing of the past. With no pouches to buy or repair, the school also gets compliance data a pouch program can't provide.

The "Most Hated" Success Story

There is a unique irony to Brian and Noah's success: they achieved it by restricting their own friends.

"We joke about being the most hated kids in school," they say. And while students publicly groan about losing their digital freedom, the private sentiment is different. Their peers have watched them grind from second grade to senior year, and ultimately, they are proud to see their classmates succeed on such a massive scale.

Future Ambitions

LockedIn is now in use at schools beyond Milken.

After graduating in 2026, both founders went to work on LockedIn full time. Brian left USC's Real Estate Finance and Development program to do it.

The partnership that started with Star Wars is now changing the landscape of education technology, proving that sometimes the best solution to a school problem comes from the students sitting in the back of the class.