Start Up Christian Business

Skye Leist
March 02, 2011

We are often asked about starting a “Christian business”. (If you are of another religion, just substitute that religion into the quotes. The article that follows applies to you, too.)

A “Christian business” could be something like a religious book store. That is a relatively easy business to set up, with a strong retail business model. A tougher issue are those entrepreneurs who want to exemplify Christian ethics within a business. (or Moslem ethics, or Buddhist ethics, or Jewish ethics, etc.) Many of these people have become disillusioned with working in corporate America, and for good reason: America is pure capitalism, and while that economic model is essentially a good one, it sometimes forces other approaches off the playing field. Those managers who are more in tune with keeping good employees compete daily with managers who are more in tune with a strong bottom line.

The past couple of years have stretched this concept to the limit. Do you keep good employees, and face going under; or do you fire good employees for the good of the company? Do you pay decent wages, or pay bottom of the barrel wages to keep competitive? Do you buy product that is cheaper and not so good, or product that is good but more expensive? Do you encourage unpaid overtime from your employees, or not?

It would be great if these decisions only need to be made on Wall Street. But in truth they are made daily on every Main Street in America. And it would be nice to believe that is only the product of tough economic time, but it isn’t. This is the system we live in.

The “ethics” issue is a big one, and is likely to get bigger. We believe this is one reason why so many entrepreneurs are electing to become independent business people, especially online business people. We have an incredible opportunity right now, the opportunity to define our own future with our own business. We haven’t seen such a burst of independent activity since the 1800′s.

Sure, they are still sleaze artists on the web. But you don’t have to be one. You can choose to become a very legitimate online business, holding onto the personal and business ethics that define you. The world awaits. Go get it.

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