It can be daunting to decide what schools you want to apply to and what you want to study when you’re only a teenager in high school. But it’s important to remember that what you choose to study doesn’t always dictate what type of career you’ll have.
And it didn’t for Ahmed Mezil (BASc ’14). He’s one of many alumi who have taken an unexpected career journey. How do you start in engineering at the University of Waterloo and end up becoming the CEO of the cleaning company Hellamaid? That’s what we’re going to find out.
It can be daunting to decide what schools you want to apply to and what you want to study when you’re only a teenager in high school. But it’s important to remember that what you choose to study doesn’t always dictate what type of career you’ll have.
And it didn’t for Ahmed Mezil (BASc ’14). He’s one of many alumi who have taken an unexpected career journey. How do you start in engineering at the University of Waterloo and end up becoming the CEO of the cleaning company Hellamaid? That’s what we’re going to find out.
Welcome to Uncharted, a University of Waterloo podcast. I'm your host, Jennifer Ferguson. On Uncharted, we feature awesome alumni who open up about their career journeys, the highs and lows, the twists and turns and anything they've learned along the way. On today's episode, we're welcoming Ahmed Mezil.
Ahmed Mezil:I remember sometimes during lunch break, after I would talk, I would teach my first lab session in the morning, during the break, I would actually wear my Hellamaid shirt, get my mops, get my supplies and go clean a house, and the people that were coming to see the house for sale were actually professors, were actually my colleagues. It was such an embarrassing yet funny moment where they saw me clean a house. They're like Ahmed, what are you doing here? Like, didn't you have a class in the morning?
Jennifer Ferguson:Remember when you were in, let's say, grade 10 or maybe 11, and the questions started coming at you "what are you going to do with your life? What career do you want? And usually this happens because you have to start applying for post-secondary and thinking about what you want to study. But what you study doesn't always dictate what type of career you'll have, and it certainly didn't for Ahmed Mezil. He's one of many alum who have taken an unexpected career journey. So how does someone start in engineering at the University of Waterloo and end up becoming the CEO of a cleaning company? Let's find out. Ahmed. Welcome to the podcast.
Ahmed Mezil:Thank you for having me, Jennifer.
Jennifer Ferguson:I want to start out right here. Did you ever expect to be where you are today when you were in high school, choosing to go to Waterloo for engineering?
Ahmed Mezil:Not at all, Jennifer. Completely did not expect this current position.
Jennifer Ferguson:So why don't you tell us a little bit about why you chose engineering and why you specifically chose Waterloo Sure?
Ahmed Mezil:So let's go back to 2007. So when I was doing so, I was a grade 11 student in St Catharines, where I grew up, and I took a course, or a class, I would say, on tech. I think it was called tech design and we had to design a table. And before this, I've always known that I love to design and build stuff. So since I was a kid, I've always loved going to the beach and, you know, building sandcastles or playing with Lego or just building stuff like rocks and pebbles and just drawing stuff on the sidewalk. And then this creativity really inspired me throughout my high school to take on courses that brought that ingenuity out of me and using my hands and using sketching and drawing to build something.
Ahmed Mezil:And so the tech class in grade 11 was the perfect fit for it. So in that class, we had to design and build a table out of wood, using AutoCAD for our designing, and the wood in the machine shop as well as the machines. So we had, like miter saws, table saws, drill presses, and, yeah, I just built a table a contemporary, unique-looking table from start to scratch and I thought you know what Engineering is going to be the right choice for me. So then, that's how it started. And then, when it came to picking the schools, I applied to a lot of schools. So I applied to McMaster, I also applied to Queens University, I applied to University of Guelph and I applied to University of Waterloo.
Ahmed Mezil:What I really, really, really loved about the University of Waterloo, what I really, really, really loved about the University of Waterloo, was the co-op program. So, besides from it being one of the top engineering schools, I think the co-op program was very lucrative for me. Now, although the other schools had the co-op program, they weren't as strong as UW's, and I really wanted to embark on a university path where not only was I learning theory but I also wanted to put that theory to practice. So the rich co-op program at UW really made it easy, an easy choice.
Jennifer Ferguson:Co-op is definitely a factor for a lot of students who choose Waterloo, like yourself. So let's get into your co-op experiences, because the truth is, as a student, you don't know what you like until you try it, and that's one of the beauties of co-op is that you get to try different industries and careers. And I know for you, Ahmed, the last co-op placement of your degree you know it was kind of pivotal for you Help change your perspective on what you want and what success looks like. So let's get into that.
Ahmed Mezil:For sure, for sure. So my six co-op terms were very diverse, started off with a software testing at BlackBerry, to working in automotive, to working in manufacturing, working at sandblasting companies, 3D printing. My last co-op term was actually a breakdown for me. It was a co-op experience where I learned actually some really cool things. I learned 3D printing, I really dug deeper into SOLIDWORKS and CAD and all that. I was part of a team of other co-op students. We had one supervisor, so we were a team of three in total, where it was me, the two other mechanical engineering students and our co-op supervisor at the company, so an A player or at least I thought I was an A player coming in to work on time even before everyone else, doing my best to excel, thinking that I would achieve another excellent ranking on my co-op term, like I always did before this co-op term, only to find that at the last day of my co-op things completely changed. I walked into my supervisor's office and he was about to give me my review for the co-op term and I was really you know, my head was up high and I was really confident that I would get another excellent or at least a very good, very good ranking, only to find that, you know, his tone changed. And, long story short, I actually got a heartbreaking satisfactory ranking, close to unsatisfactory ranking, and I actually, I, actually, I just actually just started crying in front of him. It was a complete shocker for me. My heart broke into two. I was always like a perfectionist student. I was always that first that front row kid, and for a front row kid to get an unsatisfactory ranking on his co-op. It was very heartbreaking for me.
Ahmed Mezil:A few weeks later, when I went back to my study term, I decided you know what? Something was not right. Like how did this happen? This does not make sense. Like I did the best that I could. I went to all the meetings, I went, I met all the deadlines, I did all the engineering drawings and I built all these things. Why did this happen?
Ahmed Mezil:So I decided to meet with my co-op counselor, Tanya Gillert. She's a sweetheart. I'm not sure if she's still there, but she was amazing. I went to go and see Tanya, I told her about my entire experience and then she introduced me to this really cool thing called Myers-Briggs personality test, and the whole gist of it is that you need to know who you are as a person, because who you are as a person will dictate the right company for you to work at, the type of supervisor to work for and the type of team members to work with, regardless of the type of work, because people are emotional people beings, we're all emotional beings, we all go off of wavelengths and energy.
Ahmed Mezil:It turns out I was just in the wrong company, working with the wrong supervisor, working with the wrong team members, and so I just learned this Myers-Briggs personality test, which I still use to this day to dictate a lot of the decisions, and it was amazing. So there's basically 16 personality types. Mine was the ENFJ, so extroverted, intuition, feelings and judgment oriented, and that really changed the course of my path after that. So, yeah, that was the groundbreaking discovery of my final co-op term Learning about my personality, learning about the personality framework called Myers-Briggs personality test, and learning to never work for, regardless of how shiny a company may be, even if it was a Silicon Valley company, you don't want to sabotage yourself by working for the wrong person, like a toxic manager or a toxic team that's just going to burn you out and suffocate you from within. So that was a beautiful discovery that I apply in a lot of decisions I make today, even as a CEO, so that was amazing.
Jennifer Ferguson:Thanks for being so vulnerable and sharing those experiences, because it can be tough. Not everything works out, and there's still value in finding out that something isn't the right fit for you. So, after all your co-ops and your study terms, you had to decide what to do next, and that is a daunting decision for a lot of students that big question what to do after graduation and for you it ended up being something that you never saw yourself doing, which was grad school. So what made you decide to go in that direction and where did it take you next in your career?
Ahmed Mezil:So there were two big groundbreaking discoveries that I had during my time at the University of Waterloo, one of them being this personality discovery for the Myers-Briggs personality test learning you know where to put myself in, whether it's a company or a team, or to work under what type of supervisor.
Ahmed Mezil:The second groundbreaking discovery was actually my final year design project in fourth year. So in fourth year engineering, every student has to be part of a team where we actually design and build a project that's going to be basically a summary of everything you've learned. It's going to be the cherry on the cake of your degree. And we actually built and designed an exercise machine for paraplegic individuals, so to improve their health. So to improve their health. So we built this machine that allowed paraplegic individuals to exercise their lower body using their upper body. This was such a cool machine. It was such an inspiring piece, especially for me, because I thought like, wow, you can still use your engineering experience to do good things, meaningful things that could impact the lives of people. So I thought healthcare and engineering was a perfect merger.
Ahmed Mezil:So from that point I looked out for two things. I said I didn't want to do engineering industry for sure, like my co-op experience taught me that the engineering industry wasn't for me, so there was only going to be two paths for me. The engineering industry wasn't for me, so there was only going to be two paths for me. It was either going to be a startup, working at a startup, or starting my own, or joining grad school. I wasn't really leaning more towards the grad school piece because, to be honest, I was never an A-plus student. Although I was a front row student, I never had those very high achieving marks and I didn't ever think that I would be doing research.
Ahmed Mezil:So I pursued the startup piece. To cut short, I pursued the startup piece with someone who I thought you know, we were actually very close friends. He said hey, ahmed, you know, don't apply to any jobs. Once you graduate, you're going to come and work at my startup. And he had a really cool startup where it was an armband that would detect health metrics, so it was like a health metrics armband. I said you know what? Sure, let's do it. So I didn't apply to any jobs for six months and then come May 1st. So after I graduated it was May 1st I was going to that startup incubator for my first day of work, supposedly, only to discover that my so-called friend unfortunately said we don't have any funding, so the whole startup dream got crushed.
Ahmed Mezil:So here I am you know, having not applied to any engineering jobs for six months, and I'm I'm back at ground zero after having just graduated and I have nothing on my hands. So it was a very, very sad, depressing two weeks because I just had nothing going on for me and all my friends in my class already had landed great looking engineering jobs. So it was was in a very sad, depressive state and I thought you know what? Let me just wing this one. I'm just going to send an email to my fourth year design project supervisor to see if he's accepting any grad students. Grad school is not on my mind, but you know what? I got nothing else on my hands either. Let me just give this a shot.
Ahmed Mezil:So I sent an email to my professor, professor John Medley, and the email was a one-liner, literally a one-liner. Hi, professor John, this is Ahmed, one of your students from the 4Q Design Projects. I was wondering if you had any openings for research within your your team would love to be part of the team. Let me know, thank you. He responds saying hey, ahmed, uh, thanks for, uh, thanks for your email. Would love to have you, but your marks aren't really don't meet the cutoff of the type of students that we that we bring on. Sorry, but we can't bring you on. But there's this other professor that just joined, professor James Tung, who is in mechatronics and he was also doing engineering work along the lines of health care that I was really interested in. He loved my work, he loved my fourth year design project. But he said, Ahmed, I would love to have you, but unfortunately I have no funding.
Ahmed Mezil:However, I want to introduce you to this third person, Dr Milos Popovic, the head, the chair, of spinal cord research of Canada in Toronto. So I meet this guy, guy number three, two weeks later at Toronto Rehab Hospital in downtown. I show him my work and I tell him how passionate I am about joining grad school. That's within the healthcare field. He says, ahmed, I love your work, it looks awesome. However, it isn't within my field. But there's this guy on the 13th floor of this building right now doing exactly what you're doing. He's actually an adjunct professor at U of T and I think he'd love to bring you on. I meet this guy number four, professor Tilak Dutta. I show him my work and the stars align and he takes me on. And because the hospital is affiliated with U of T, not only did I get accepted, but I was actually way past the application deadline. But the professor made a special request to have me on and that's how I landed my master's.
Jennifer Ferguson:Oh yeah, your story about sending that first email. Oh, that can be tough. You can so easily talk yourself out of it Like I don't know what to say. Are they even going to read it, what's the point? But you just have to do it.
Ahmed Mezil:You just have to take that step, that is true, there's also a statistic, I think, that says most of the opportunities aren't posted and when you send that email you're just you know you're butting in line and you're just going to like you never know, like it costs nothing to send an email, so just be vulnerable. You never know what happens.
Jennifer Ferguson:And there are so many people out there who are willing to help you and connect you with other people.
Ahmed Mezil:That's right.
Jennifer Ferguson:So what happened next in your career after grad school? I know the next step took you really into those strengths that you have from the Myers-Briggs personality test.
Ahmed Mezil:Right. So while I was in U of T, one of the things you have to do as actually part of your program, there are some TA ships you have to undertake. So TA ships. For those who don't know, a TA stands as teaching assistant and me, you know, having never like, sat, like stood in front of a lecture hall, you know that sounded very daunting to me, but I I took it on. So I took on various ta ships.
Ahmed Mezil:Not only did I take on various ta ships, but the, the passion I did that I discovered that I had, that was actually, you know, wired within my ENFJ personality, says Myers Briggs. The extraversion within me really blossomed. I was having the time of my life, like even now, 10 years later, when I ask myself like, what were the times in my life where I was really loving the work that I was doing? I keep remembering these TA ships and the engineering summer camps that followed that opened the doors for what to do after my master's.
Ahmed Mezil:So after my master's, after I defended my thesis, which is part of our master's, my supervisor at U of T actually offered me a PhD position. Um, my supervisor at U of T actually offered me a PhD position. But having known my abilities and my personalities uh, and, and and my personality I respectfully declined because I did not see myself writing and sitting in front of a computer for five more years doing a PhD. Uh, I thought that I would really starve the extroverted person within me and I needed to deal more with people than publish papers. So after my master's I started applying to jobs and one of the jobs I actually applied to was a lab instructor position at the University of Guelph. Yeah, so that's how I landed my dream and my first job actually at the University of Guelph, as a lab instructor for biomedical engineering.
Jennifer Ferguson:So that's what you thought was the dream at the time, ahmed. But today you are not a lab instructor, you are an entrepreneur. So is it fair to say this was a little unexpected. How exactly did it happen?
Ahmed Mezil:For sure. So I'm now in this new role as lab instructor at the University of Guelph, teaching awesome biomedical engineering students. Because it's a teaching position, my contract was only like 35 hours a week. There was a lot of flexibility throughout my day to do various side hustles. There was a lot of flexibility throughout my day to do various side hustles While I was in my office at University of Guelph. I had this aching desire within me to start a business.
Ahmed Mezil:I don't know how that desire came afruit, but I think it has to do a lot with the startup culture that UW enforced within me. No-transcript. I always heard of Velocity, I always heard of Communitech and I would see on the UW website in the news section oh, you know, this startup raised X million dollars.
Ahmed Mezil:This startup just sold for X million dollars. As much as I appreciated the startup culture that UW grew within me, I also didn't like how entrepreneurship just seemed so far out of reach. I felt like you're just a regular person or you're a multi-billionaire entrepreneur and there was nothing in between. To me, it always felt like entrepreneurship was a million dollar app idea or you had to have millions in investment money. So I was like you know what Entrepreneurship? No way, it's not going to happen. But then, years later, when I was sitting in my office at University of Guelph, that desire to be your own boss was still lurking within my head. I was like no, let me give this a shot. What if there is an opening for entrepreneurship? What if the bar isn't so high like I thought it was? What if it doesn't have to be a million dollar app or I don't have to have millions in investment money?
Ahmed Mezil:So that's where I started my research. So while I was teaching labs during my breaks, I would try to work on discovering new business ideas. So I I was teaching labs during my breaks. I would try to work on discovering new business ideas. So I actually started dropshipping with Amazon. I was buying and selling stuff on eBay. That stuff was all temporary. I felt like it didn't work out, it wasn't consistent. And then, out of nowhere, a friend of mine who knows that I was going on this journey, a friend of mine sends me this article from Reddit and the article basically talks about how to build a local business in 30 days. For me, I didn't really know what local business was. I know what local cafe and local this and local markets were, but I never really knew what local business was. Local business now that I know is basically local services. So think of, like lawn mowing, think of your local roofer, think of your local cleaning service, think of your local electrician, your local plumber and all that. That's what local services are.
Ahmed Mezil:But the article talked about, um, you know, first it had the 30-day plan and because I had so much time on my hands, I I actually said you know what, whatever, let's do this thing. It talked about the 30-day plan in detail, but it also talked about how there's so much money and so much potential in local services and it actually answered my question. It says you know when people, you know when we think entrepreneurship is so far out of reach, it actually shouldn't be Because there's so much potential in your local neighborhood. There's so much potential in your local city. You know, look at, you know, just search up on your phone. You know the cleaning service in town and see how many reviews they have, see what customers are saying about their services and see how you can do one. That's better.
Ahmed Mezil:I chose cleaning because I thought that cleaning was something that wasn't seasonal. It was needed all the time and everyone could be a client, whether it was a business or a person, so like any person. And then day two was I think it was along the lines okay, now buy a domain name. And then day two was I think it was along the lines okay, now buy a domain name. I chose the word Hellamaid on GoDaddyca, which is where I bought the domain, and Hellamaid was available. It sounded nice and it was only $4. And then the rest was history. So I followed day three, day five, day 10, day 20, day 30. Before you know it, it was two months, it was three months, one year, two years, three years. Now we're at seven years.
Ahmed Mezil:I was actually juggling my lab instructor position role while also cleaning houses sometimes. I remember sometimes during lunch break, after I would talk, I would teach my first lab session in the morning. During the break, I would actually wear my HelloMate shirt that I printed from Vistaprint get my mops, get my supplies and go clean the house. And I had a very funny encounter once when I cleaned the house that was being listed for sale and the people that were coming to see the house for sale were actually professors, were actually my colleagues at the school. It was such an embarrassing yet funny moment where they saw me clean a house. You're like Ahmed, what are you doing here? Like, didn't you have a class in the morning? So it was a nice, friendly encounter. But yeah, so that it's.
Ahmed Mezil:It was a long journey. There were so many moments within this business that I wanted to just quit, just call it in and quit, um, but it just grew, just grew. Uh, we, uh. I was uh cleaning three houses a week in my first year and now we're at 300 houses a week. Before we were only cleaning in Guelph and now we're cleaning across 70 cities in Canada. Before I had one cleaner, now we have 140 cleaning partners working with us. So yeah, seven years later into this job, I decided to pull the plug. Seven years later into this job, I decided to pull the plug and farewell my engineering path. I also achieved my PNG license and I actually have my license here with me as a token of all the of my seven year journey in engineering through Waterloo, U of T and University of Guelph as an employee.
Ahmed Mezil:And now I'm a full time entrepreneur just building this cleaning service.
Jennifer Ferguson:Amit, do you think it's fair to say that all of your experiences like school, co-op careers they still all helped you to lead you to where you are today?
Ahmed Mezil:Yeah, now, to be honest, I did have a negative thought before. Maybe it was last year or before. I was like you know what, why did I do seven years of engineering? Was seven years of engineering actually a waste? You know, why didn't I just do college Like? Why didn't I just do a two years business course through one of the colleges? But when I look back, I actually think otherwise.
Ahmed Mezil:Now, although I am not doing anything that's remotely engineering related, I had to go through all of that to get me here because the stars just had to align. First of all, I could not have guaranteed that the idea of Hellamaid would have existed had I just popped out of high school and started the business. I had to go through everything I went through. So the people that I met at Waterloo, the experiences that I built at Waterloo, you know, took me to U of T. The people that I met there, the experiences that I had, took me to University Guelph In my time at the University of Guelph, the thought process that I had, the sense of entrepreneurship that UW instilled within me, and all the people and all the incidences and the beautiful experiences that I had throughout all these schools, incidences and the beautiful experiences that I had throughout all these schools.
Ahmed Mezil:They were building blocks. I would like to say that created Hellamaid. So I think everything has a reason. So if you're listening to this and you think that you're in the wrong spot in your life right now, you know, trust, that it's a stepping stone. It's a stepping stone to something more greater than you can ever imagine. And just be patient. Now you know, trust, that it's a stepping stone. It's a stepping stone to something more greater than you can ever imagine, and just be patient.
Jennifer Ferguson:Amit, thank you so much for being on the podcast and really just opening up about your career journey. It has been such a pleasure getting to know you and all the best in whatever comes next. Thank you for having me. All the best in whatever comes next.
Ahmed Mezil:Thank you for having me.
Jennifer Ferguson:UWaterloo Alumni Podcasts are produced and hosted by me, Jennifer Ferguson. Don't forget to follow, like and subscribe wherever you listen and find more alumni content at uwaterlooca slash alumni.