Aleem Khan

At 28, Shel­don Stephen is a self-made mil­lion­aire with an es­ti­mat­ed net worth of over $60 mil­lion. It is a for­tune he amassed through hard work sell­ing mo­bile phones and de­vel­op­ing re­al es­tate up and down the val­ue chain. Any­one who knows him can tes­ti­fy that he cre­at­ed his wealth the old-fash­ioned way; through hard work and per­se­ver­ance, Stephen told the Sun­day BG in one of three in­ter­views, the most re­cent be­ing April 3.Born in San Fer­nan­do to an em­ploy­ee at an oil com­pa­ny and a house­wife, he at­tend­ed a near­by Vedic school be­fore go­ing to San Fer­nan­do Sec­ondary. A lot hap­pened in young Shel­don's life at 16 af­ter sec­ondary school. He en­rolled to study busi­ness man­age­ment at the St Au­gus­tine cam­pus of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), his fa­ther passed away, and he dropped out of UWI to start a busi­ness.

His fa­ther last knew him as a stu­dent. His de­ci­sion to leave ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion was met with re­sis­tance by his fam­i­ly. As the last of the chil­dren, there was no pres­sure on him to pro­vide for the fam­i­ly and it was his fam­i­ly's pref­er­ence that he stay in UWI and com­plete his de­gree. To­day, some of his fam­i­ly num­ber among the 350 peo­ple who work for him through­out his group of com­pa­nies.By 17, he had mus­tered $15,000 from his fam­i­ly and start­ed a small kiosk up­stairs a small mall on High Street in San Fer­nan­do, sell­ing mo­bile phones.Asked if the lo­ca­tion was what made his first busi­ness pros­per, he said no. "I think it was the dri­ve. By that time we had al­ready built a clien­tele. We were al­ready recog­nised as the cell phone guys."

When asked why he kept say­ing "we," he said his busi­ness part­ner, Ab­dool Az­imul­lah stayed with him in his oth­er ven­tures."We start­ed every­thing to­geth­er," he said."We were friends grow­ing up." Stephen asked that the Sun­day BG not print Az­imul­lah's ex­act age but okayed the news­pa­per to say he is slight­ly old­er."So every­body would have found out our lo­ca­tion, and would have come to us, be­cause we had the best prices. We had a lot of in­no­v­a­tive tech­nol­o­gy, new stuff. A lot of things that, at that time, were hard to get done, we would ba­si­cal­ly get done. So we were up to the times with all the new stuff."His busi­ness pros­pered and, by 18, he took on a bold new part­ner, Dig­i­cel. "I got my Dig­i­cel fran­chise at the age of 18, which was pret­ty young and that's what drove me to get de­vel­op a group of com­pa­nies that fast."I start­ed off with Dig­i­cel in 2005 and, over a short pe­ri­od of time, we grew to be­come Dig­i­cel's num­ber one deal­er, that is, based on per­for­mance."

The 17-year-old's cell­phone busi­ness was "in­de­pen­dent" be­cause it had no bmo­bile con­tract. He got his Dig­i­cel con­tract in 2005, but did not start un­til 2006 be­cause of "all that dra­ma with bmo­bile" that saw Dig­i­cel's launch date de­layed un­til April 2006.His two Dig­i­cel stores did very well in its first five years. Lol­labee Cel­lu­lar grew from two out­lets in south Trinidad to, now, eight out­lets na­tion­wide. Loy­al to Dig­i­cel, he added, "So that's just to show the whole es­ca­la­tion in terms of growth with­in Dig­i­cel. That's Lol­labee Cel­lu­lar."

Per­sis­tence and hard work

How­ev­er, Stephen was not sit­ting on the lau­rels earned as a Dig­i­cel re­tail­er.In 2008, a mere two years af­ter his Dig­i­cel launch, Stephen opened a con­struc­tion com­pa­ny."We start­ed to do a lot of build­ings and hous­es. We did a lot work for Dig­i­cel as well. We ac­tu­al­ly built all of Dig­i­cel's stores. We al­so do a lot of work for T&TEC, and for, you know, peo­ple who want hous­es built and that kind of thing. We then we went in­to ma­chin­ery. That ac­tu­al­ly did pret­ty good."In 2009, he opened up an event man­age­ment com­pa­ny, Lol­labee En­ter­tain­ment, "and that was re­al­ly, re­al­ly suc­cess­ful. We do a lot of events and Car­ni­val fetes in South. The Guardian pub­lish­es a lot of pho­tos from my par­ties. We ac­tu­al­ly dom­i­nat­ed the en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try in a mat­ter of two years or so.""We are prob­a­bly the most pre­mi­um event com­pa­ny in South right now. I'm prob­a­bly the on­ly per­son who gets peo­ple to come from the West to South to par­ty."

In 2010, Stephen and his part­ner opened a re­al es­tate com­pa­ny through which they buy, sell and de­vel­op prop­er­ties. "We ac­tu­al­ly launched our first ma­jor re­al es­tate project through Lol­labee Re­al Es­tate, which is The Hamp­tons in Palmiste," he said, adding that the project "up to scratch with those projects in the West."He said a key ac­qui­si­tion was a two-acre plot of land in Palmiste. He de­scribed it as "a good break­through for us."Stephen is proud of The Hamp­tons at Palmiste–named af­ter the pres­ti­gious New York is­land-neigh­bour­hood–which forms the South Fork of Long Is­land."It's a part­ly-so­lar town­house de­vel­op­ment. We're go­ing green with our hous­ing projects, so we're do­ing so­lar street lights, part of the house will be so­lar. It's ac­tu­al­ly 20 town­hous­es with pools etc."

In 2012, Stephen opened an­oth­er com­pa­ny, Ex­pe­ri­ence Ef­fects Ltd, which is a light­ing and spe­cial-ef­fects com­pa­ny. He said he has done work for Dig­i­cel and Stag."For a two-year-old com­pa­ny, I think we did ex­treme­ly well. This year we did Army fete, Fire fete, South Can­cer fete, Jam­boree and Rise. I did all John­ny Soong events. We took work from com­pa­nies that were out there 20 years and more. I think it was a re­al big achieve­ment," he said. "It's a re­al­ly big chal­lenge to get peo­ple to even con­sid­er you for work."In 2014, he plans to ven­ture in­to ad­ver­tis­ing. "My goal is to open an ad­ver­tis­ing com­pa­ny with LED screens. We ac­tu­al­ly have our first screen up in Princes Town. That is up and run­ning," he said.Look­ing fur­ther, five to 10 years ahead, he said he sees him­self ex­pand­ing each of his busi­ness­es. In re­al es­tate, we al­ready have projects lined up for the next five years in San­gre Grande, Fyz­abad. "We have an­oth­er project in Palmiste too.

"The re­al es­tate com­pa­ny pur­chased a lot of land all over the place, so what I'm go­ing to do now, all over, is hous­ing projects on each of those plots of land. In terms of Lol­labee Re­al Es­tate, we have our hands full for the next five to eight years."He said he plans to "go heav­i­ly in­to ma­chin­ery this year" as well, buy­ing trac­tors, es­ca­la­tors and back­hoes, "just to di­ver­si­fy out the con­struc­tion com­pa­ny with heavy equip­ment."

Long-term plans

Stephen's 10-year goal is to open "a man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pa­ny that gen­er­ates a lot of em­ploy­ment for the coun­try." He said he has a few ideas, but has not de­cid­ed on which of his three to five ideas he will pur­sue. He said a num­ber of man­u­fac­tur­ers in T&T have no ma­jor com­pe­ti­tion. He said no one is do­ing "re­cy­cling of en­er­gy" ei­ther, so he may look in­to that too.Asked what he thought is hold­ing back fledg­ling en­tre­pre­neurs, he said: "My view of some Trinida­di­ans' down­fall is that they like to fol­low."Some­body starts to sell burg­ers, next thing there are a mil­lion burg­er carts around the coun­try. Some­body starts to sell clothes, same thing. We don't like to be au­da­cious and to take the first step. We're not that in­no­v­a­tive and it makes the in­dus­try sat­u­rat­ed."

Prod­ded for more busi­ness ideas to share with Sun­day BG read­ers, Stephen said: "On a large scale, I think Trinidad needs some­thing for tourism. I'm not ca­pa­ble of do­ing it yet, but you know, a busi­ness­man should look in­to some­thing for tourism. Let's say, like a big wa­ter park. We're an is­land. We have beach­es and we don't re­al­ly have a world-class fa­cil­i­ty for tourists.

"We need some­thing to T&T like At­lantis is to The Ba­hamas. Look at what one mas­sive ho­tel could do for an is­land. We have beau­ti­ful wa­ters. I think if a big in­vestor in­vests in a mas­sive re­sort, with wa­ter slides, or even build an is­land off Trinidad–like the small palm is­lands off Dubai–that will gen­er­ate mas­sive tourism for Trinidad. It's out of my reach for now but maybe in 20-30 years."Asked for the over­all worth of his com­pa­ny, he said he nev­er re­al­ly cal­cu­lat­ed it but "if I add in all my re­al es­tate prop­er­ties, it would be a good bit, you know."

He added: "If I were to give you a fig­ure I would be guess­ing, but I start­ed off with $15,000 and we are def­i­nite­ly a mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar com­pa­ny right now. My re­al es­tate com­pa­ny alone is prob­a­bly val­ued at least $35 mil­lion based on the prop­er­ties we have alone."

He es­ti­mat­ed that is as­sets Ex­pe­ri­ence Ef­fects Ltd prob­a­bly has about $4 mil­lion in equip­ment; his con­struc­tion com­pa­ny, about $2 mil­lion; Lol­labee Cel­lu­lar about $6 mil­lion in stock and equip­ment; in ve­hi­cles, about $4 mil­lion, "so if you add up, we're safe­ly over $60 mil­lion in terms of the val­ue of what we have. I think it was a good ac­com­plish­ment in a short space of time."

He lat­er added, "I'm on­ly 28, so we have some years ahead."Many think Stephen in­her­it­ed his busi­ness from his fa­ther or wealthy rel­a­tives but un­hesi­tat­ing­ly he told the Sun­day BG, "No, I start­ed this off from scratch. Many peo­ple think that I am run­ning it now, that I didn't start it. Peo­ple al­ways think my dad start­ed it up, and I just run it be­cause he's not here, but that's not true.

"I re­al­ly came from noth­ing. Hard work is what made me what I am to­day, and every­body who knows me could tes­ti­fy to that. It's not that I in­her­it­ed mil­lions, and I just con­tin­ued to make mon­ey from that mon­ey. To take $15,000 to mil­lions of dol­lars re­al­ly re­quires a lot of hard work."