No Waiting Around: Micah Lewis ’04 Builds His Own Opportunities
Micah Lewis ’04 doesn’t wait.
In high school, that showed up on the track: explosive starts, quick decisions, no time to hesitate. He reacted, adjusted and kept going.
That instinct never left him.
Lewis has traveled around the world and draws inspiration from many areas for his business.
Built to Move
Now, it shows up in how he sees opportunity as a startup founder and business development specialist who continues to transform the way the world lives, travels and thrives. A problem appears, and Lewis leans in. He studies it, tests it, turns it over until something clicks.
Then he moves.
“I’ve always paid attention to friction,” Lewis says. “If something feels harder than it should be, there’s probably a better way.”
Progress Over Perfection
That mindset took shape early, rooted in discipline and necessity.
College wasn’t a given. Lewis chose UCF for its access and flexibility, arriving with a simple goal: keep moving forward.
His experience in the College of Community Innovation and Education looked different from many of his peers. He worked , balancing shifts with coursework, navigating a schedule that left little room for hesitation. College wasn’t about exploration for its own sake. It was about progress.
He chose legal studies as a practical and purposeful next step. A degree. A paycheck. Momentum.
Long hours and tight turnarounds forced him to prioritize, decide quickly and move on. What could have been a constraint became a sharpening.
In some ways, it felt like his time running track.
You don’t overthink the next step. You take it.
Learning at Full Speed
After graduation, that urgency carried him west to California for law school, continuing the same rhythm: work, learn, move forward. That momentum led to an opportunity with Apple in 2005, where he gained firsthand experience inside one of the world’s most innovative companies.
The pace was relentless, the expectations high. It reinforced what Lewis already knew: adapt quickly, think in real time, keep moving.
But something else was taking shape.
Rather than settling into a traditional path, he felt pulled toward building — toward identifying problems and creating solutions of his own.
So he followed it.
Finding Friction, Building Solutions
Instead of waiting for the perfect opportunity, Lewis started looking for problems others overlooked.
He launched a digital screen advertising business in 2012 after seeing local businesses that had unused televisions and monitors in their public areas, stepping into a fast-moving space where timing and visibility mattered. There was no blueprint. He built relationships, figured out logistics and adjusted as challenges surfaced.
He moved to NYC in 2015, where he was surrounded by opportunities to flex his entrepreneurial spirit.
In 2017, Lewis began My Bag Check with a simple observation: in busy cities and crowded events, people want the freedom to move without being tied down by their belongings. It was a small frustration — and it was everywhere.
Lewis identified the friction immediately – and figured out a way to fix it.
He built a solution that allowed people to store their bags securely while they moved through their day, turning convenience into a scalable business.
From there, the ideas kept coming.
“I was building the plane while flying it,” he says. “You don’t always have the answers. You just start.”
Momentum in Motion
That willingness to start led him to New York, where the pace matched his own.
There, he encountered a different kind of friction: parking.
For drivers, it was a daily puzzle — street sweeping schedules, unclear signage, constantly shifting rules. One wrong move could mean a ticket or a tow. Most people accepted it as part of city life.
Lewis didn’t.
He developed a service to help drivers navigate the complexity, turning confusion into clarity. His service? Marketing available parking for residents affected by their parking puzzles. It demanded constant awareness, quick pivots and a deep understanding of the system. It also reinforced something he had come to trust: the best opportunities rarely announce themselves.
They sit in plain sight, waiting for someone to notice.
Building What’s Next
That belief shapes his work today.
With his latest venture, Lewis aims to simplify the moving experience for students, building a app designed to remove barriers that can slow progress. It’s a concept rooted in his own journey, grounded in the understanding that time, clarity and access matter.
Like everything he builds, it starts with a question: What’s getting in the way?
For Movana, Lewis designed an app that quickly inventories the student’s living space, allowing movers to send accurate quotes, and removing any surprises on moving day. Movana provides boxes and labels, and collects the boxes on schedule. The boxes are then kept safe in a climate-controlled facility, and then delivered to the student’s new address when notified.
Currently, UCF is one of six colleges serviced by Movana.
Looking back, Lewis’ path isn’t linear. It wasn’t built on a single plan or destination. It unfolded in motion, shaped by decisions made quickly, often under pressure, always with an eye on what comes next.
See It. Move.
At UCF, that mindset was born out of necessity. Years later, it remains.
“Every opportunity starts with a choice,” he says. “You either take it, or you let it pass.”
For Lewis, the choice is instinctive.
He sees it.
And he moves.
