Most college students spend their undergraduate years preparing for the working world. Kyle Levy spent his time building a company inside it.
While studying finance at the University of Miami Patti and Allan Herbert Business School, Levy founded UniHop, a student-focused logistics and delivery company that began with one simple frustration: getting packages on campus.
“At first, our focus was relieving the difficulties of receiving packages on campus,” Levy said. “Everything funneled through the UPS store, and especially after breaks, it could take several days to get your packages. You had to wait in line and carry these big boxes back to your dorm. We wanted to make it easier.”
The original idea was straightforward. Students could ship packages to an alternate address, and UniHop would deliver them directly to dorms at scheduled times. But the company quickly evolved beyond package delivery as Levy and his team listened closely to what students actually needed.
“We would always just say yes to things,” Levy said. “People would ask, ‘Can you meet an Uber driver because I left my phone in the car?’ Sure. It forced us to think about customer problems differently. Then, we could start creating solutions customers did not even know they needed.”
That adaptability became one of the defining characteristics of Levy’s entrepreneurial journey.
Susan Amat, associate professor of professional practice in the Department of Management and one of Levy’s longtime mentors, said what initially set him apart was not simply ambition, but an unusually disciplined commitment to execution and customer problem-solving.
“The tenacity that Kyle showed through every hurdle when everyone else would have given up about 100 times, he was unrelenting,” Amat said. “He was not tied to his solution. He was 100 percent focused on solving a customer problem.”
Over time, UniHop expanded well beyond the University of Miami campus. Customers in other cities began reaching out online, asking whether the company could support deliveries at their own universities or communities.
“That was probably the first moment where I realized this could become much bigger than a student startup,” Levy said. “The thought became, how can we make ourselves able to say yes more often?”
Eventually, UniHop expanded into additional college markets and later supported delivery operations across North America.
Amat said Levy’s growth extended beyond the company itself. While still an undergraduate student, he developed a reputation as a thoughtful voice in logistics, supply chain operations, and last-mile delivery strategy.
“He became connected to almost every major name in the supply chain industry,” Amat said. People forgot they were speaking to someone who was 20 or 21 years old because of how deeply he understood the space.”
Levy said much of that expertise came from constant experimentation and immersion in the operational realities of the business.
“I love to push and push and push and find ways to break things because then you can rebuild stronger,” he said. “I am a very analytical observer.”
That mindset, he explained, often led him into conversations with larger technology and logistics companies that viewed him less as a student entrepreneur and more as a collaborator or consultant.
At the same time, Levy was balancing the realities of running a labor-intensive startup while completing his degree.
“Every day was a new challenge and a new puzzle,” he said. “It was absolutely difficult, but that feeling of caring so much gave me that extra bit of strength and energy to keep going.”
Levy credits much of his resilience to what his family called a “third period mentality,” a mindset shaped by years of playing hockey growing up.
“You are exhausted, you are down, and you still have to find that little bit of drive to keep pushing,” he said.
That intensity became well known inside Miami Herbert’s entrepreneurship ecosystem.
Amat described Levy as one of the students who helped establish the culture of the Dean M. Fogel Entrepreneurs Hub during its early years.
“Kyle would be one of the first students there in the morning and one of the last students to leave at night,” she said. “Entrepreneurship was not something he did for a class. It was how he spent his time in and out of class.”
Levy said the support system around him proved instrumental, particularly during periods when the company was evolving rapidly.
“Dr. Amat was incredible,” he said. “There were people throughout the business school and University who really supported what we were building. It could be someone from marketing using our services or even someone helping us access a building when we needed to grab packages. Those things mattered.”
Still, Levy is quick to emphasize that entrepreneurship itself cannot be reduced to coursework or classroom theory.
“Entrepreneurship is very hard to teach and very hard to grade,” he said. “It is something you have to push yourself into.”
He believes too many aspiring founders spend years waiting for the “right” moment to begin.
“Every day past graduation is four years too late that you could have started,” Levy said.
For Amat, Levy’s story reflects what can happen when talent, mentorship, discipline, and execution align.
“He earned what he accomplished,” she said. “The work is done by the student. Period.”
