ENTREPRENEURSHIP FORUM. Jose R. Soberano III, chairman and CEO of Cebu Landmasters, Inc., discusses “Building Empire from Scratch” as he speaks before the participants of an entrepreneurship conference at the Waterfront Hotel Lahug on June 21, 2017.
CDN PHOTO/JUNJIE MENDOZA
How to be a good entrepreneur
MORE than having a dream or vision, a good entrepreneur should know how to look at existing opportunities and match them with what they are capable of doing.
These were words shared by Jose Soberano III, chairman and chief executive officer of homegrown real estate firm Cebu Landmasters Inc. (CLI), during an entrepreneurship conference at the Waterfront Cebu City Hotel & Casino on Wednesday.
“It is like a gardener looking at a landscape. The question that should be asked is how to make things more productive in this land, what kinds of trees, plants, and flowers to put so that it will be more beautiful,” Soberano said.
This has been the concept the developer has carried all this time, something that has taught him to spot opportunities in areas and appreciate locations to come up with products fit for a certain market.
Soberano is a former “Ayala boy” with 23 years of experience under the Ayala group’s various business units, the last one being with Cebu Holdings.
Inc, where he was among the pioneers who built the Cebu Business Park in uptown Cebu City.
With this extensive exposure to real estate, one would expect he would be going in the same direction after his stint with the Ayala-led company.
But in 2000, he was drawn to public service and ran for congressman of Cebu’s third district. He almost made it, but even as he suffered a loss, he had intended to run again in 2004. Along the way, however, he saw an opportunity in the town of Balamban, which is a part of the third district.
A friend had sold to him a contracting company for the Balamban-based shipbuilding company Tsuneishi Heavy Industries, with 35 employees under his watch.
He thought that these people would be able to help him in his political aspirations, but his priorities changed instead.
He realized that there were no housing developments in Balamban and once again saw how he could fill in the gap.
Soberano found and bought a three-hectare property in the town at P100 per square meter, which he later developed into a housing facility for Tsuneishi employees that chose to stay close to the workplace.
“That started opening my eyes to opportunities that lie ahead. I was on a crossroads then, torn between pursuing my political dream or go for something that would harness my skills and the opportunities in the market,” he said.
He said he thought his calling was public service, but instead of going into government, he found that the kind of service he wanted to give was building homes.
He later moved to another development in Toledo City, which was close to mining firm Carmen Copper, and then launched additional housing projects in Minglanilla, while refocusing his family’s export business into a real estate.
Soberano completed his first residential condominium project on a property bought from the Ayala group at the Cebu IT Park in 2010, propelling his venture into vertical development including office spaces and mixed-use buildings.
CLI has gone from a company that targeted the economic to cater to high-end markets with more than 30 projects, even going beyond Cebu with existing and planned projects in Cagayan de Oro, Davao, Iloilo, Dumaguete, and Bacolod.
As the first homegrown real estate company to go public, CLI has come a long way from its humble roots more than 13 years ago.
Soberano said there was no magic formula to the company’s success, only a good grasp of opportunities.