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grew up chasing trout. From rivers in Montana and Wyoming to the streams of Colorado, fly fishing became the lens through which he saw the world. It also became the lens through which he started building. Now a freshman at Leeds, with multiple startups and an internship at one of the world’s largest fishing companies under his belt, he’s not slowing down anytime soon.

Coming to Â鶹Ãâ·Ñ°æÏÂÔØwas a deliberate choice. Boulder offered mountains, fly fishing, and a business school with the resources to match his curiosity. Caniato enrolled as a Leeds Scholar, pursuing a double emphasis in strategy and entrepreneurship as well as management information systems, with a philosophy minor in the works. He is involved in the Leeds Consulting Group and the AI Club, and finds time to fish whenever he can.

If there is a through line connecting all of it, he is not particularly concerned with naming it. The pattern speaks for itself.

Building Something Before He Had a Name for It

The label of being an entrepreneur came naturally, and not something Caniato initially set out to be. What came first was taking on something new and running with it. From there, it was finding ways to make it better.

His senior year of high school, a fishing buddy connected him with the founders of Fairfield Fishing Camp, who were looking for someone to help launch a new branch in Westport, Connecticut. Caniato said yes before he had a plan, tapping into the true nature of entrepreneurship. He started by recruiting two friends as counselors and spending the spring promoting on social media and putting up flyers around town. By the time summer showed up, he was ready to run a camp.Ìý

It was a huge success, with 75 campers signing up in the first week. Throughout the summer, it was constantly full, and now, the organization is expanding to two more locations. Caniato is still helping with marketing.

It was the kind of experience that teaches you more than you expect. He went in because he liked fishing. He came out with a working understanding of how to launch something from scratch. By just saying yes to an opportunity, he turned it into a career-defining mindset. Just like that, he had built an entire branch of a camp, without any starting direction

Reading the Room at a Billion-Dollar Company

When Caniato arrived at CU, his first concern was beyond internships, and how his business education would prepare him to work in a world shaped by AI. In the first week of school, he reached out to Jeremiah Contreras, a Leeds accounting professor who has been at the forefront of integrating AI into business education at CU. Soon after, he showed up at his office with questions.

That conversation and connection led to Pure Fishing, the largest fishing tackle company in the world and a Sycamore Partners portfolio company. Contreras had worked with them before, and when a second round of internships opened up, Caniato applied and got it.

His team was primarily student-led, and tasked with solving a real operational bottleneck using AI. He didn't know the impact he would make at the time, but he soon would.

"It was really cool to have the C-suite wanting to know more about what we were working on. I think every CEO knows they should be using AI, but very few of them know what that means for their company."

The reason, he believes, comes down to a gap that exists inside many large organizations. Executives know they need to be using AI. Very few of them know what that means in practice.Ìý

"There's a lot of value that college students can provide. I think we know more than we think we know, and companies are genuinely looking for people they can trust to come in and help."

What executives want, he found, is someone they can trust to actually implement something. That distinction mattered to him.

The Gap Between Knowing and Doing

Caniato brings that same observation to his work in the Leeds AI Club and his broader thinking about how businesses approach emerging technology. One of the larger problems he’s noticed is a hesitancy to explore.

"Jeremiah always tells students to just go play. And I love that, because I think with AI and all these new tools, you don't have to be working toward something big. Just go mess around."

His photography business reflects the same instinct. It started because he was going to beautiful places in pursuit of trout and wanted to bring a camera. It grew because he started doing random work and saying yes to things, like headshots and specific events. There was no grand plan.Ìý

The connective tissue across all of it is motion. Acting before the path is fully clear. Learning by doing rather than waiting to feel ready.

Stop Looking for the Idea

Caniato has spent his freshman year collecting experiences that most students take four years to accumulate. What ties them together, he thinks, is attention. Paying attention to where things break down. To where people are stuck.Ìý

"An entrepreneur is someone who can identify problems, connect with people and understand people, and then solve them. Stop looking for the idea and start looking for the problem."

He is quick to add that it's a team sport. Going at it alone, in his experience, means going down the wrong path. Talking to customers, getting diverse perspectives, building with others: those are the valuable insights.Ìý

At 18, Caniato is still figuring out which problem he wants to spend the most time on. He is genuinely comfortable with that uncertainty.

"There's no such thing as wasted time as long as you're doing something and you're somewhat intentional about it. All experience, especially in your 20s, isÌýgood experience."

The fishing will continue. So will the building.