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- Year Of Graduation: 2024
- College/University: University of Toronto
- Major: Computer Science, (Geography Info Systems minor, Business minor)
What do you do for a living? Can you share what a typical day at work looks like? Do you enjoy what you do?
I am an unemployed NEET (not in employment, education, or training) living under my parents. Well…that’s one way to put it. Another phrasing would be that I am a startup founder. Sounds a lot nicer, right? It’s all about perspective!
I don’t necessarily work for a company, but for myself, currently making $0. And my main activity has changed dramatically in phases since mid-feb, when I shut down my last legaltech startup. That was a ride, and was much further along than where I am now, as I was leading a small team of four. But I had to move on from that after a teammate left.
For the past two weeks, I’ve been exploring the green energy space, specifically solar and wind projects. I am trying to see how I can help with cost estimation using my software and data chops. I’ve been told that estimating costs is a big challenge for project developers. My goal right now is to talk to as many people in the space, mainly project managers, and learn from them. I’ve used Linkedin to talk to six people over call so far, which took 30 hours of effort, and I’ve learned a lot.
I’m making no money, but having a lot of fun and feeling like I’m growing! I’ve noticed my social skills are improving the more I’ve talked with people over the past couple months. I’m learning sales. I’m learning how to ask the right questions. Everything you need to go from 0 to 1 in a startup.
Can you tell me about your experience finding a job after graduation? Are you happy with where your journey has led you thus far?
Horrible. Absolute bloodbath. I started sending out applications for 20 minutes every morning, starting Aug 2023, when my last year of uni started. I didn’t get my first technical interview until 10 months later and 500 applications, in June. Wasn’t spraying and praying either.
The tech market back then was the worst it has ever been since the 2008 recession, possibly the dot-com bubble too. It has gotten worse since. I stayed consistent in applying until I graduated. And until that time and a couple months after, I got a couple automated online assessments, two recruiters calls, but nothing more.
I had a decent resume, good projects, and one year of software experience. Why was I getting rejected? This process is like a black hole. You get no feedback why you are ghosted. My resume goes into the same hole hundreds of times, and nothing ever comes out. Companies have no empathy for candidates. Even after the few interviews I had, I would get a generic rejection email. Only one company, a small startup of five people, had the heart to give me detailed feedback.
75% of my friends also did not have jobs lined up, and those who did had return offers. Most of us, including me, did not have our internship converted into a full-time offer. A month post-graduation, I was still happy, chilling and working on one passion project of mine, ant ride. It’s a bit broken right now, but somewhat functional. It automatches everyone based on their location and is super easy to use. There is nothing like it out there as far as I know.
But after that, I felt like I had no more purpose in life. I wanted to make something, not just learn random coding tools or make toy projects. I wanted to make something used by people. So two months after graduating, I started looking online for someone to pair up with on a startup idea. I talked to 10-20 people on the YC cofounder matching site. One of them was a hardworking guy who had demoed his software solution idea to 35 lawyers, netted from 200 hours of cold calling. He just needed a software developer to help him bring it into reality.
That is another story in itself, but the following 7 months were the most I ever grew in my skills, and the hardest I ever worked. I learned how to lead a team, how to make technical decisions, how to do sales, how to cold call, everything. But that came crashing down mid-feb, and I felt hollow once again. Motivation rose and dipped on various projects I worked on, until 2 weeks ago. I have been motivated constantly since.
Why did you choose your undergrad major? Do you feel your time spent in college was valuable? Why or why not?
I did a computer science major, a geographic information systems minor, and a business minor. I did computer science because I did three years of robotics in high school, and loved mechanical engineering and building robots and machines. But I saw labor statistics say that the market for software developers was growing 3x as fast as mechanical engineers, so I went into comp sci.
I only dabbled in coding very lightly before then. I went into university pretty much blind. I did a 10 hour python course the summer before university, but that did not teach me about what kind of software you can make. I think going into software in general was great, because I love what I am able to make with my imagination.
That being said, though, the time spent in college and the money was not worth it at all. It was five years of my life and $50k out of my pocket/loans. $20k loans are still outstanding. It was five years because one year was spent doing an internship and taking part-time classes on the side. The professors lacked industry experience and their teaching was quite poor. I self-learned the same content ten times as fast, for free.
I now recommend everyone take a gap year after high school to learn and pursue your own passions, get the job or internship you think is interesting, and see if you can start your career without going through the bloated and expensive system known as college. In hindsight, I would have done this, and next to a full-time job, I would have completed a degree in two years online, just to get that piece of paper. Most managers have a degree, and think only people with a degree will be competent. I believe that most managers do not know what early career talent looks like. They look for the wrong things.
If I asked you three years ago, what goals would you hope you’ve achieved, in life or career?
This takes me back to the first free summer I had during university, right after my 4th official university year, when my one year internship had ended. I had no work or classes lined up over the summer. It was four months of bliss and growth. I became disciplined by planning my days hour by hour, a practice I still do today.
I built a few side projects, and learned software tools I had wanted to learn for a while. It’s hard to think what my goals were at that time, but it was mainly to make a side project that would get real users and impact the world (didn’t happen unfortunately). I was also gearing up for my new grad job search, but was not too stressed about that. I had never thought at that time to do a startup. I had ideas, but no serious ones I would think would pop off.
How important is it to have a purpose-driven life? Why or why not? Do you think you’re on a path to do that? If not, what needs to change?
I think it’s very important, because the times in my life where I had something big to work towards were the times I was most motivated. That was lacking the past five months.
If you are currently lost, I know how you feel. With whatever energy you have left, put yourself out there, try to find someone else to work with, and reach out to others to see if they can invite you to something they are doing and guide you. The first startup I did was the legaltech one I joined as a cofounder. Being able to start where they left off, which was 2000 hours of work, was a lot easier than if I started from scratch.
What’s your biggest struggle right now? What led to it? How are you moving forward?
It would probably be time, because I make a plan at the beginning of the day, and some things take longer than expected, or some unexpected delay happens. Today we had guests over and I lost an hour because of that. I generally have a pretty good control of my life right now, and am making progress on my startup idea.
What interests/hobbies bring you the most happiness?
Working with a team towards creating something, such as a startup or side project. It’s intense, challenging, and gets my brain firing. It’s like the world’s best video game.
What do you want to spend more time working on? What is stopping you?
This is a bit hard to answer because I don’t feel like I want to do something else at the moment, but if I had to choose, it would be making an AI doctor app that can listen in on your doctor visits, and give you an expert second opinion at the end of the visit. This way you know what to push back on with the doctor. I saw my mom getting dismissed by her primary doctor a year ago for a health concern. It later turned serious and led to a painful ER visit that finally solved the problem. My app would have been able to help her before it got to that point.
Time is stopping me, I am just 5% done with it, and I allocate it at the end of my days. But it gets pushed out frequently, like today.
If we traveled three years into the future of your life, what do you want to achieve? What would you hope has changed?
I hope to have a thriving startup that solves a real problem in the world, is a great place to work, and something I’m excited about everyday. If you are someone who is interested in doing a startup, you’re serious, and willing to put in at least a few tens of hours every week, hit me up!
What’s the biggest lesson or piece of advice you wish you’d known earlier?
I would give this advice to myself when I was at rock bottom and demotivated in life. I kind of mentioned it earlier, but when you are itching for a challenge to pursue, use whatever energy you have to find something. Either explore an idea, or join one. Reach out to people in your network, on Reddit, on LinkedIn, and try to find something interesting they’re doing that you can help them on. It’s a lot easier to do something when someone else who is motivated is helping out. You can be their sidekick.
Finding something exciting to do is hard. It won’t come to you on a silver platter, so you must put in the effort to find your purpose.
Connect With Sabih:
- LinkedIn: @sabihsarowar
- X: @da_green_hermit
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