No one ever said it was easy being an entrepreneur
Romel El Sheik was born in Sydney and has now called Canberra home for more than 30 years.
A defining moment in Romel’s life was at age of 15 when he was assaulted and left with a disability that dashed his dreams of becoming a policeman. He has always tried to overcome his health conditions and has worked in jobs as diverse as being a painter and a pizza delivery driver. These roles didn’t work out for Romel. From the age of 19 he started to break away from the norm. He started to think outside the box. He became interested in process innovation and passionate about invention. Internally Romel had many exciting ideas but externally no one in his circle was willing to listen or engage in a meaningful conversation. He had an urge to do things better
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and more fun, to make a positive difference. Unfortunately, Romel endured being ridiculed as people laughed at his ideas often leaving him feeling deflated and depressed. On reflection they probably didn’t understand what he was pitching. Romel would again experience disappointment as some of those ideas, years later, organically found another pathway to get into the marketplace.
Romel has always found it very challenging to find an investors who are willing to take a risk enter into a fair partnership. His experience has been that there is not really a banking product such as an unsecured business loan for a start-up. A lot of searching uncovered that whilst there were some government funded business support programs there was not really government funding to fully support an entrepreneur from concept to commercialisation. As an entrepreneur Romel regularly feels frustrated and building resistance to rejection.
For many years Romel recorded his ideas in a scrap book he kept by his bed. In addition to thoughtfully exploring solutions to problems during the day, he would literally dream of business ideas at night and wake up wanting to quickly capture them before they were forgotten.
Several times in his life Romel has pitched an idea to people who would turn out to be unscrupulous. People who rejected the idea to his face but subsequently pursued that exact idea themselves. That is obviously devastating and understandably, Romel became very closed off about discussing his ideas. He became overly cautious about who he would speak with, never knowing if he could trust them.
Romel had a company in the United States interested in one of his ideas. They had signed a Confidentiality Agreement and negotiations were progressing. Then COVID-19 hit. The global economy was disrupted and another dream that was tantalisingly close was dashed. Like so many people and businesses COVID-19 forced Romel to pivot and build more resilience.
Romel is very familiar with the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) and developing his business ideas has benefitted from the Business Connect and Entrepreneurship Facilitators programs. Romel 2.0 has a clear plan and is highly energised to take his business platform ShaikStar forward. Romel is motivated to make people’s lives easier and more fun through creating new products based on process innovation and pure invention. He has lodged a patent for his main invention. His products will create value by solving problems and delivering convenience. Several of his key ideas will help people with a disability in particular. Romel understands how difficult it is to live with a disability. He has a vision to encourage other people living with a disability with business ideas to pursue their dreams.
Romel El Sheik through ShaikStar is committed to making a positive difference in the world. His paradigm is to bring about change “Innovation is reality.”