As a young girl, Mariana Antaya ’23 dreamed of starting her own company and puttered away at business ideas.

When it came to choosing a college, Antaya was in search of a smaller school with “an uplifting and supportive community.” She uprooted herself from her home in San Francisco’s Bay Area to find that at Fairfield, along with the opportunity to play collegiate golf.

A mathematics and computer science double major, Antaya fondly remembers being mentored by associate professor of analytics Chris Huntley, PhD, in the Dolan School’s Fairfield StartUp program.

“Last year at Startup, I was heading onstage at the Quick Center, not to pitch, but just to give an update on my journey, and Dr. Jie Tao and Dr. Huntley were both backstage with me. We were remembering just how scared I’d been when I was standing in that position, about to pitch, a year earlier.”

That was the year of the 2022 StartUp Showcase, when Antaya led team Quantify to victory. Her group of five Class of 2023 students won $12,500 in seed funding to develop its crypto currency trading app.

“Quantify aims to provide the building blocks to allow individuals to build and scale their crypto portfolios with less volatility, at their own pace, and with their own investing styles and strategies in mind,” explained Antaya. “Most competitors offer trading with high transaction fees or very limited algorithms. Our goal is to bridge the gap between premade algorithms and high-tech solutions that hedge funds are using, to make crypto trading accessible to all.”

The Quantify app offers users three primary features. The first is an educational component that provides information for individuals who want to learn more about crypto trading. The second allows users the ability to link all cryptocurrencies together to save time and avoid having to trade between different crypto wallets and platforms. The last feature assists users in developing their own crypto trading strategy, to align with their personal financial goals.

Through the integration of artificial intelligence, the app is highly intuitive and scalable, to meet the needs of each user. Now called quantifAI, Antaya said she continues to develop the company and idea on her own, as a “bootstrapped startup.” Bootstrapping is the process of launching and growing a business without relying on outside capital.

“Being a solopreneur is challenging and exciting, but it also means there is a lot of responsibility and late nights alone,” Antaya said. “However, the fact that my idea started while I was in college — and is growing, little by little — brings me joy. The journey to build something that helps other people is the most rewarding part, and being able to do it alongside other talented industry leaders and mentors is awesome.”

While still an undergraduate student at Fairfield, Antaya interned at Microsoft and was offered a full-time position at the company following her graduation. Now a product manager at Microsoft Teams, she said she really enjoys Seattle, where innovation intermingles with big tech, startups, and the aerospace scene.

“I’ve gotten exposure to different fields that I wouldn’t have looked into on my own,” she said. “From my perspective, there is a wealth of knowledge every turn I take, from ex-Microsoft or ex-Amazon people. Their stories and lessons from building a product from infancy — including their failures — makes building a product not so daunting. There is also a big AI culture; I attend monthly AI talks and get to meet other AI startup founders.”

Antaya shared that her days at Microsoft usually consist of back-to-back meetings in the morning, talking with customers, engineers, or other product managers. Once lunchtime hits, and after her second or third cup of coffee for the day, she likes to get some “focus work” done — doing market research, creating pitch decks, writing product requirement documents, and occasionally brainstorming on the future vision of the product. She also actively mentors on product management, big tech, and startups, on Tik Tok and in her online community Product House.

This past spring, Antaya returned to the Quick Center stage as host of the 2024 Fairfield StartUp Showcase competition. “I was most excited to see the new talent,” she said. “I think that’s what makes it so special: the perspective and talent is different from what other schools or communities offer. At the end of the day, it’s the little notes and extra effort that makes participating in this [StartUp] community and competition incomparable.”