Mapping a route to entrepreneurship

Kevin Miller ’26 traces his love of motorcycles back to a family story involving his father, a Honda and a septic tank.

Years before Miller was born, his father sold his motorcycle to help pay for the septic system at the family’s first home. Decades later, during the pandemic, he decided to ride again and bought a used Honda Gold Wing.

“I rode on the back with him a couple times, and I thought, this is cool, but I want to be in control,” Miller said.

In spring 2021, Miller completed a Motorcycle Safety Foundation course at Caldwell Community College and bought an old Honda Magna that June. He has been riding ever since.

By the summer of 2025, Miller had already begun exploring entrepreneurship at LR when his interest in riding sparked a new idea.

“There’s nobody doing motorcycle rentals in the North Carolina mountains,” he remembered thinking. “That’s a terrible shame.”

Now Miller is developing a motorcycle rental and route-planning business, giving visitors a ready-made way to experience Western North Carolina by motorcycle. Instead of riding or trailering their own bikes hundreds of miles, customers could arrive in the area, rent a motorcycle and follow routes designed to help them explore the region.

“Fly in and ride,” Miller said. “That’s what I’m aiming for.”

Miller came to Lenoir-Rhyne as a transfer student planning to major in marketing. When he needed additional credit hours, he chose to add entrepreneurship as a second major rather than fill his schedule with unrelated courses.

In an entrepreneurship incubation course, his motorcycle tourism idea grew into a roughly 50-page business plan that he pitched to judges.

“I went from an idea I had at supper with my parents to something I’m pitching to investors and actually launching,” Miller said.

That experience matters now. Miller is one of 16 entrepreneurs selected from across North Carolina for the inaugural North Carolina Small Business Center Network Startup Showdown, sponsored by Wells Fargo. First prize is $30,000, with $20,000 and $10,000 awarded for second and third place.

Miller isn't encountering the pitch format for the first time with $30,000 on the line. He's done it before at LR.

Faculty members including Ali Oguz, John Andrews, Jamie Strom, DBA, and Craig Schreiber, Ph.D., repeatedly scrutinized his plan, asked hard questions and required him to defend his ideas. In June 2026, Miller took his pitch to an international stage when his business was one of four student ventures selected from approximately 1,100 institutions worldwide to compete in a competition hosted by the Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs. 

“It’s been tough love at points, but I’d much rather have my professors push back hard on my ideas and find the weaknesses in my plan before I’m standing in front of judges with money on the line,” he said.

For the Startup Showdown, Miller submitted a business plan and delivered a six-minute pitch followed by four minutes of questions from judges. A first- or second-place finish, he said, could put him in position to launch the business in spring 2027.

Miller credits both of his alma maters — Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute and Lenoir-Rhyne — with preparing him for where he is now.

“I wouldn’t have been a business student without being a Cobra, and I wouldn’t be where I am without being a Bear,” Miller said.

As he takes the next step toward his dream, Miller remains grounded in what made him a rider in the first place — and what he hopes to share with visitors to Western North Carolina.

“Riding is a lot of fun, and I think it’s just a great way to explore,” he said.

Community voting for the Startup Showdown is open through September 15. Vote for Miller by watching and liking his pitch on YouTube.