Giovanni “Jing” Olivares was just a kid when he got his first taste of business — counting thousands of tiny buttons in his parents’ factory.
His mother would travel alone to Palawan, riding small boats with a couple of workers just to buy sacks of “susu” shells, used to make mother-of-pearl buttons. “She’d come back with 100 sacks,” Olivares recalls. “I helped count the buttons. That’s how I got exposed to business early on.”
It wasn’t glamorous, but it shaped how he thinks about work to this day: stay driven, stay humble, and never be afraid to get your hands dirty.
Turning small lessons into big business
That early exposure laid the foundation for a career that would span decades. Olivares went on to manage a pest control business in his 20s, eventually taking over from his older sister — his first mentor — who needed to focus on building a hospital with their parents.
The job came with pressure. “If a customer saw one cockroach, they’d be calling me at 6:30 a.m.,” he says. That taught him the value of customer service — and how to stay calm under pressure.
From family hustle to generational legacy
Olivares later pivoted into real estate and founded Ovialand. Over nearly 30 years, he’s delivered over 25,000 homes. But for him, the real win is seeing his kids embrace entrepreneurship too.
“All my children are entrepreneurs,” he says. “I always made them enjoy it. Making money should be fun. If you’re stressed and miserable, you’re doing it wrong.”
That mindset paid off when disaster hit. A typhoon damaged a bridge leading to one of his projects, blocking access. His daughter Pammy stepped up, took charge of a smaller property — and sold everything in three months.
The bottom line:
Business isn’t just about numbers. It’s about grit, attitude, and the people you grow along the way.
This article includes quotes from an interview originally published by Esquire Philippines, authored by Henry Ong.
