44 products at discount prices. Since they had set the prices high enough in the very beginning, to discount the prices was not a problem. Even though they were sold out at discount prices, they still recovered their cost. That’s why they were able to get through that COVID-19 pandemic year. According to Table 7, the APD Owner’s Equity shows the overall shares were 10,000 shares: Mr. Piya holds 25% of the shares, and the other two shareholders hold 25% and 50%. Each of the shareholders has helped the others since they started this business together. Table 7 APD Sport Company Ltd 2016-2019 Statements of Financial Position The partners divided their work by looking at their abilities. For example, Mr. Piya can use English fully, and he also has some skills in financial management. He takes care of business financial management and also contacts potential partners. As for the other two shareholders, one takes care of the product design, online marketing, and responding to customers' online chats, which includes receiving orders from the customers. The last one is a brand ambassador since he was a former Thai football player. According to Table 8, from 2018 to 2019, APD Sport’s Current Assets (Cash, Receivables, and Inventory) increased by more than tenfold from 37,310.31 Baht to 580,862.12 Baht. The
45 reason was that they were not able to sell enough of their products, so there was a huge stock inventory in their store. This meant that most of their current assets were their inventory stock. Table 8 APD Sport Company Ltd 2016-2019 Statements of Financial Position They were able to sell only during the first 3 months of 2020. After that, they were faced with the COVID-19 pandemic that affected their total current assets, not because of cash, but because of leftover inventory in their store. Because of their huge inventory in 2019, when the pandemic started, they were not able to sell as much as they needed to. That means, most of their Cash and Cash Equivalents were from their left-over inventory. They were able to sell only during the first 3 months of 2019. After that, they were faced with the COVID-19 pandemic that affected the total of current assets not because of cash but because of leftover inventory. According to Table 9, the company had Long-term loans to related parties under the heading of Non-Current Assets. It may also be seen that from 2017 to 2019, there was a reduction of that amount by 50,000 Baht from 2017 to 2018, and another reduction from 2018 to 2019, this time around 200,000 Baht.
46 Table 9 APD Sport Company Ltd 2016-2019 Statements of Financial Position Those related parties were some of their dealers and trade partners. For example, Ari, Nok Kaew, and those partners have branches in different provinces all around Thailand. APD Company sells to them on consignment, giving them credit sometimes, and allowing them to take their products first and pay later. Contracts were prepared for those long-term loans. APD needed to have long-term loans from the related parties, because that was another way of building up relationships with their partners, since they were doing business in the same field. Sometimes they also shared their ideas and products among themselves; that’s why the loans were not always in cash form, but also in the form of products. In business, the value of those products can also be counted. Other loans were from financial institutions like banks. According to Table 10 below, in 2017 APD’s Trade payables and other payables were at the highest level when compared to the year before and the years after. After that one year, APD was able to reduce the amount from 715,762.97 Baht to 74,000 Baht, which is a huge difference. Since they were profitable by the end of 2017, they were able to reduce their trade payables in 2018 by 641,762.97 Baht because they were producing more products and selling more as well.
47 Table 10 APD Sport Company Ltd 2016-2019 Statements of Financial Position (3) BIG – BASS Water Plant Financial Analysis Mr. Pornchai solved his employee problems by taking a break from his work and letting his parents run his business by themselves. He took around 1 month to learn about other similar businesses in Bangkok until he felt better, and then he returned to his work again with the abilities of a more mature leader. Mr. Pornchai joins worship services on Saturday with his wife and avoids unhealthy foods. Pornchai is a newborn Seventh-day Adventist member, and he said that he sometimes needs to slowly adjust to Adventist doctrines. He is willing to know more and have more experiences with God. He has accepted Christ as his Savior, since every question in his mind has an answer in the Holy Bible. Mr. Pornchai started his water business in 2019 according to his financial records that are shown below. The statement shows that his receivables were slowly increasing two years later. He had done his marketing work carefully. Pornchai said that because people gradually became better acquainted with his business, he was using the strategy of winning customers’ trust by being honest with them. He always keeps his word, and he tries to understand the customer’s situation; he is also kind and respectful to them. He knows how to communicate and respond to each customer,
48 and he was exploring each village in both the towns and countryside, including some of the shops in the Muak Lek District, which is in Saraburi Province. His service areaa also includes the Klang Dong and Pak Chong Districts in Nakhon Ratchasima Province, along with some villagers who live near Khao Yai National Park, and the grocery stores in those districts. He looks at the needs of his customers. Most of the areas where his customers live are in the countryside. These places have no public transportation; some places are farms, and most of his customers are agriculturists who garden and raise animals. Most of his customers like his service, he said, because he focuses on making every drinking water bottle look clean. To accomplish this, the entire strainer system needs to be cleaned with refined salt every single week. He focuses more on long-term service, not charging high prices, but keeping prices at one standard level, and he also tries to build long-term relationships with his customers. For example, he sells an 8-liter bottle of water for only 15 Baht per bottle to every customer. Certain chemicals are used in his production process; for example (1) Chlorine is one important substance, because it kills bacteria in the water. (2) Antiscalant is a chemical designed to inhibit the formation and precipitation of crystallized mineral salts. Antiscalant is a proprietary organic compound produced from man-made polymers (e.g., polyacrylic acids and carboxylic acids). The importance of antiscalant is that it helps to reduce limestone, or it may be called a pretreatment water softener filter system before sending the water through a membrane filter. It is a solution to reduce scale build-up to solve the problem of blockage in the production process. (3) Refined salt is used to restore the performance of the resin filter that acts to transform hard water into soft water. It looks like a clear resin crystal. To provide quality drinking water and to keep the drinking water always up to the standard, it must have a PH value between 6.5 and 8.5. Drinking water with a low PH value is acidic and can damage pipes. This produces toxic metals such as
49 copper and makes it unsuitable for drinking water. Water with a PH value that is too high will have an unpleasant taste and reduce the effectiveness of disinfectants such as chlorine. Pornchai did not really like the way his business was working, since he had some more ideas about how to improve his business. But he is waiting until he has enough funds to implement them, and the economy has not been good for investment, since there has been less demand. The cost of goods sold was also getting higher each day. He got certain ideas for developing his business, like to have ice as a product along with drinking water, water packs and or plastic water bags, including water in the form of cups. Table 11 below shows sales, operating expenses, and profit and loss each month from January to December 2019, which was the first year for Pornchai’s new business. Table 11 2019 BIG-BASS WATER PLANT Statement of Financial Activity According to Table 11, Pornchai’s business has never operated at a loss. The Financial Activity didn’t show any negative results, and the average monthly sales in 2019 were 65,721 Baht. His operating expenses were around 40,000 Baht each month except for February 2019. His lowest profit was 9,863 Baht in the month of January, but his profits slowly increased in later months. In the months of February, April and May, his profits exceeded 10,000 Baht per month, with the business earning 10,766 Baht, 15,351 Baht, and 10,312 Baht per month respectively. And for the months of March, July, September, October, November and December, the business earned
50 more than 20,000 Baht profit per month, with 24,692 Baht, 20,941 Baht, 26,693 Baht, 24,925 Baht, 22,594 Baht and 23,858 Baht respectively. For the months of June and August, profits passed 30,000 Baht monthly with 34,840 Baht and 36,276 Baht. So, in summary his average profit was around 9,000 Baht for 1 month, about 10,000 Baht per month for 3 months, around 20,000 Baht for 6 months, and around 30,000 Baht for 2 months. Thus, his average monthly profit was around 21,759 Baht for the year of 2019. According to Table 12, Pornchai didn’t suffer any losses again in 2020, just like in 2019. The Statement of Financial Activity didn’t show any negative results, and the average monthly sales in 2020 had increased to 76,678 Baht. Table 12 2020 BIG-BASS WATER PLANT Statement of Financial Activity His operating expenses were mostly around 40,000 Baht per month, except for the month of February. This was because some of the chemicals that he uses in the water purification process like chlorine, antiscald, and refined salt were donated by his trainer. His lowest profit was 21,510 Baht in the month of February, and his profits fluctuated as the COVID pandemic began to impact the Thai economy. In the months of January, April, May, June, August, September and November, his profits were 36,171 Baht, 30,401 Baht 34,994 Baht, 36,979 Baht, 32,306 Baht and 31,977 Baht. In the months of February, March, October, and December, they were slightly lower at 21,510 Baht, 28,154 Baht, 28,510 Baht, and 28,834 Baht.
51 July was his best month in 2020, with earnings of 44,091 Baht. Starting in the month of July 2020, a wealthy man near Khao Yai National Park in Pak Chong District asked Pornchai to produce drinking water and deliver more than in other months. He had problems with his water tank, and he needed to use water not only for cooking, but also for cleaning and showers for himself, his family members, and his workers as well. The average profits were around 34,683 Baht for the year of 2020, which increased from the previous year by around 12,924 Baht from last month. According to Table 13, Pornchai’s business has done better and better since the Statement of Financial Activity didn’t show any negative results. Table 13 2021 BIG-BASS WATER PLANT Statement of Financial Activity His average monthly sales in 2021 were 76,934 Baht, and his operating expenses were still around 40,000 Baht per month, except for the months of February and March. This was because he needed to repair his pickup truck, since it was suddenly damaged because of overweight loads. So, he needed to ask a mechanic to add 4 layers of leaf springs on each side of his pickup, and change the shock absorbers to larger cylinders, which took 1 week to repair. During that one week, he rented a friend’s truck to keep his business running and paid 11,000 Baht for this expense by taking from the cash earned in the month of February. The repairs cost another 23,563 Baht, which he took from proceeds for the month of March. That’s why his operating expenses in the month of
52 February and March were higher than the other months. His lowest profit was 14,327 Baht for the month of February. In the months of January, April, May, July, and August, the business earned 27,450 Baht, 27,367 Baht, 28,454 Baht, 29,058 Baht, and 29,140 Baht respectively in profits. For the months of June, September, and October, his net proceeds were 30,254 Baht, 34,638 Baht and 30,385 Baht, the months of November and December garnered 40,886 Baht and 44,801 Baht. In the months of November and December 2021, he received many orders from his customers. Since it was the third year of running his water business, people all around the area that was mentioned were getting to know him more, and because of the power of word-to-word marketing, he received more and more orders. His average profit was around 29,370 Baht per month for the year of 2021, which was less than the previous year by about 5,313 Baht. If we look his average monthly sales between 2020 and 2021, they slightly increased from 76,678 to 76,934 Baht, which, is only a difference of 256 Baht. This shows that he was able to continue his regular sales, but his profit dropped down since the operating expenses in 2021 were higher than in 2020. Mr. Pornchai started his business shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic, but his business sales were the opposite of other businesses. He said that he wasn’t affected too much by the pandemic, but he gained even more sales than before. The reason was because people turned to his services more and more. Since people were scared to go out from their houses and most goods were getting more expensive, some villagers who used bottled water began to use his service since it was one of the lowest price options. It also helped them avoid going outside for shopping during the pandemic, since his business would deliver filled water bottles to the customer’s house and collect back the empty bottles.
53 Pornchai reviewed his profits and losses from each year in order to learn from those results. He said his sales depended on how much he goes out: the more he goes out, the more he sells, since he gains more and more customers. His operating expenses were systematic, since his business operates not on a monthly, but on a yearly basis. All his expenses were incurred over a two- or three-months’ time. For example, he needs to purchase empty white and clear 18-liter water bottles: white bottles cost 42 Baht each, and clear ones are 62 Baht each. He would get that price at a factory price because he purchases them at the wholesale price; he was ordering around a hundred bottles at a time. In a year, he will purchase bottles only two or three times. The bottles were used in a regular cycle, washed, refilled with water, the lids were close, and sealed with the covers. Pornchai predicted the direction of his prospects. He said that his future sales will be positive; he will gain some profit, but not that much; it will be at a level that is just fine. If the business has no debt, then he will have profit of about 30,000 Baht every month. The daily wage of his workers depends on his sales; he pays the water lifter 2 Baht per bottle. For example, if he can sell 200 bottles per day, the water lifter will get 400 Baht on that day (200 x 2 = 400). Pornchai explained that the reason he needed to pay the water lifters that way was because he wanted to motivate them to lift more and more water bottles, since the more they can sell and lift, the more they will earn since he will give them 2 Baht per bottle. Since Pornchai started his water business, he never experienced having no orders from customers; he said that would be impossible! Every house and every store needs to use and drink water in their daily lives. The biggest headache in his business was dealing with his workers since one of his workers was his best friend. Sometimes he didn’t come on time, and he always asked for cash advances; sometimes he was irresponsible, and sometimes they don’t understand each
54 other. It was very difficult for Pornchai to say no to his best friend. Sometimes because of their friendship, the friend didn’t return the cash advance that he received before. That became a loss to the business. The gaps in ages between Pornchai, the manager, and other employees was also one of his business’s problems. In Thai culture, the younger person needs to respect and be considerate to the elders, especially if they are relatives. Pornchai was a manager in his business, but at the same time, he was the youngest person in his business team. That caused a problem between him and his workers, since all the workers were his elder relatives; two of his workers were around 50 years old, and another was around 60 years old. That made him has a difficult time to managing them, since each of them had different and strong personalities. Sometimes they did not really want to listen to him. The business would have financial problems only when the operating expenses were higher than the sales. Pornchai said that as an entrepreneur, he always needed to look for income until it would cover the expenses. And since the product is drinking water, it was not that hard to always make sure that the income covered the expenses. Since his water business was a family business, the person who took care of the finances was his mother. By end of the year, he would need to ensure his trucks since his business needed to use trucks to deliver the water to customers’ houses. Pornchai used 2nd class plus Viriyah Insurance for his trucks. He said that it’s not necessary to always get 1st class insurance, since a garage was located just next to his house, and the mechanic was his friend. He checks his inventory every single day. Sometimes the profit is not enough for all the members of the family. This was especially true for his parents; sometimes they don’t get any income from the business, but the business income covers all their household expenses like electricity, food for both pets and
55 humans, and other necessary expenses in the house. So even if his parents don’t get any cash, but they still lived peacefully since they didn’t have any other expenses. To share the stories of these entrepreneurs with young Adventists and those who interested in becoming entrepreneurs is one of the objectives of this study. These stories, advice, and tips may encourage or guide believers who would prefer working for themselves rather than for an Adventist or non-Adventist organization. As Adventist entrepreneurs, they became successful while still respecting God, resting, or stopping their work on every Saturday, asking the wisdom from God, following his words, spending time with him, and applying His character to their daily lives. When they pay attention to God, their businesses would prosper in a positive way, especially with the management work, because they need to have not only one skill, but many skills to be successful. They need overall skills in financial management, in purchasing raw materials, and in communicating or dealing with partners. This requires skills in the use of language and in managing human resources, among others that are needed by entrepreneurs in managing their businesses. Establishing a new business may seem easy, but not everyone is able to keep a business running in the long term. It’s necessary for beginners to learn from the experiences of other entrepreneurs, who have gone through this process before.
56 Chapter 5 Discussion 5.1 Brief presentation as per objectives of study Objective 1: Business Establishment Each of the entrepreneurs in this study had a different motivation when setting up their businesses. For example, Mr. Paul started his business because he saw the opportunities and he wanted to be independent, by having his own income and not depending on any organization. He wanted to depend on himself with guidance and wisdom from his God, while at the same time being a blessing to other people around him. For APD Sports, Mr. Piya and his two friends started their business because they loved football, and they played it as well. They wanted to do something that they loved and never got bored of it. Mr. Pornchai started his water business because his former business was faced with a problem as previously mentioned, and he was tired of trying to find a better solution. Objective 2: Business Operational Experiences The experiences of each entrepreneur in this study faced different challenges because while running their businesses, they were also learning how to improve their management skills. Each of them was faced with different situations; there were challenges in solving problems, challenges in seizing opportunities, and challenges in financial management. They always needed for their income to cover their expenses, and here are some points that the researcher has noted from the study, both advantages and disadvantages of each of the three entrepreneurs.
57 The first is Mr. Paul Poopichitprai. Paul is able to manage his human resources well, and he has more employees than either Mr. Piya or Mr. Pornchai. But none of his employees receives a salary higher than 20,000 Baht, including him, which shows his humility as a manager. At the same time Paul doesn’t have any problems with human resources. He is quite good at managing people, since he is a humble man of a mature age. He likes to listen more than to talk. He has managed his employees by observing each one of them. By looking at what the person was good at, he has tried to put the right person in the right job. Some of his employees were broken-hearted persons, who were useless in the eyes of other people. By through the wisdom and guidance from God, whom he worships, Paul was able to have all that he needed and able to solve every single problem, no matter how small or how big. Mr. Paul wasn’t a business student, and he is a blind man, but all that he has done is from his God, whom he worships just like in the stories of Abraham in the Bible. Since Abraham was faithful to his God, that’s why all the blessings came upon him and his family. The cars and trucks that Paul has purchased were all in his company’s name, because in that way, the company will be able to receive a tax refund at the end of the year. All the bank account names were also under the company’s name as well. Paul had a chance to build his own house, but he chose to stay at his parents’ house. Instead of building his own house, he chose to build and expand his business. The reason why he said he wanted to focus on the business first was because when the business is going well, then the rest will follow. And because the business is the source of his income, it is better to focus on it than on his own needs. His mindset is always on his business since he has seen its importance. Even though he may have rushed a little by expanding his business in many different areas at the same time, until his financial statements showed losses in the last two years, but Paul has a long-term vision for it.
58 He needs to maintain his breakeven point, to always keep the income not lower than the breakeven point. He has tried to work more on marketing, by giving a 25 percent share per product to sellers to motivate them to sell more, because the more they sell, the more they will earn. Paul always enjoys what he is working on; his positive attitude brings joy and peace to his business teams. Secondly, at APD Sport, Piya and his friends brought out the best qualities in each of their business partners. This included both hard and soft skills, with one working in finance, one in purchasing, and one in the marketing part of the business. They were shareholders who were part of each other. The business is running under the three persons who have the same purpose; they focus more on online selling, which has been helpful. They are not producers but are middlemen who have seen the opportunity to make a profit without producing the products, but only ordering according to their own design and brand and selling them to their customers. They set the product prices quite high, but they make sure that the quality of the products is suitable given the price. When they were faced with the COVID-19 pandemic, they reduced their prices by giving discounts to their customers, but they still were able to make a profit. Because the discounted price still covered the cost of goods sold, so sometimes it is good to set the price high to make sure that it will still be profitable even when prices have been discounted. They also tried to sell COVID19 masks to offset their losses during the pandemic time. Piya could do more than one duty; he not only took care of the financial side, but he also helped in marketing and communicating with foreign suppliers. So as one of the partners, he tried to help in different areas as much as he could, even doing his friends’ duties, because he was looking at the highest benefit for the business and he wanted things to be done on time. The more they work on their business, the more they able to know how to deal with it, especially how to deal with their partners and with all the dealers. The dealers are in different parts of Thailand, so Piya gave loyalty points to his VIP customers that
59 may be exchanged for products. He also gave credit to his trusted partners - for example, he gave them products without receiving cash right away, but within 1 or 2 months (depending on the contract), the partner needed to give him the cost of goods sold. This would be another channel for selling their products; it might take some time, but it is worth it to have more channels for selling products. By the end of 2019, APD Sport was faced with the COVID pandemic, and their sales dropped a little. They solved this problem by seeing an opportunity to sell COVID masks instead of only focusing on their own products, replacing the lost funds to help in maintaining their cash flow. And they also tried to focus more on online selling. Finally, they were able to be maintain their business and get through the pandemic. Thirdly, the study of Big Bass Water Plant raised some interesting points; for example, like the way internal systems may go up and down, as was previously mentioned. The main cause of the problem was in human resource management. Leadership was very important in this case, and the missing points in leadership at Big Bass water plant’s business were: (1) Not knowing how and when to delegate work to each employee. (2) Negative attitudes, as a leader should have a positive attitude that will help in managing employees of different age groups, because the leader needs to understand them to keep them working in the long term. (4) Confidence: the leader needs to study and work more than others to build up confidence in front of employees to show them that (s)he has a goal and a direction in which to lead them. (5) The ability to embrace failure; a good leader must understand that failure is part of success, and not just run away every time when faced with problems.
60 (6) Daily inspiration in work at the business also was part of the motivation in business, the inspiration should come along with the leader every morning, or else it will be tricky for the business to move on. Leadership potential is also necessary in this case. Big Bass water plant can go far if they have a potential leader. If they had a potential leader since the beginning, this business could have run smoothly and come up with a professional plan that would not have caused blaming each other among family members. As seen from the previous statement of financial activity, Big Bass Water Plant doesn’t have only disadvantages, but it has advantages since their product is one of the 4 factors in human daily life, which is water. From this study, even though the business had human resource problems, but their statement of financial activity wasn’t bad. The more they go out to sell, the more they gain. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic time, they would be able to get through it. They were gaining even more, as was mentioned previously, as people turned to use their service more and more to avoid going out and meeting with other people, and to save the cash in their wallets as well. Objective 3: Things to Share with Young Adventists and Other Interested People To share the stories of these entrepreneurs with young Adventists and those who are interested in becoming entrepreneurs was one of the objectives of this study. These stories, advice, and tips may encourage or guide believers who would prefer working for themselves rather than for an Adventist or non-Adventist organization. As Adventist entrepreneurs, they became successful while still respecting their God, resting, or stopping their work on every Saturday, asking for wisdom from God, following His words, spending time with Him, and applying His character to their daily lives as the example of Jesus has shown. The knowledge and wisdom of
61 Jesus didn’t come from the earth but came from heaven above. Jesus took the rest of His life in this sinful world to keep in touch with His Father above, and that helped Him to get through His mission on this earth. 5.2 Discussion of results based on proposed research model The 3 selected Adventist entrepreneurs were not at the same level of spiritual experience since they came from different backgrounds. For example, Mr. Paul was born into an Adventist family, and when he had his business, at the same time he was also able to apply his beliefs in his business. He could keep all the fundamental beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventist Church without internal or external conflicts, since he and his family were very clear about them, and people around him also supported him. Mr. Piya from APD Sport was also born into an Adventist family, but he was not able to apply all the Adventist fundamentals beliefs in his business since his other two shareholders were not Adventists. But they have chosen to respect each other and work together as one team. Mr. Pornchai was not born into an Adventist family, but he got to know about Adventism during the lowest point of his life. This was when he ran away from his business as previously mentioned, and because of that reason, he believed that it was a calling from God. Since he became acquainted with the Adventist church, his life has been slowly changing for the better. He needed time to have more experience with that calling; since he was a new believer, it was not easy for him to apply all the Adventist fundamentals beliefs in his family business.
62 Chapter 6 Conclusion and Recommendations 6.1 Conclusion The selected entrepreneurs had different motivations in setting up their own businesses. Probably the right a way to do this is with a small budget in hand to support the first step of starting the business. This is because it’s not only a market trial, but also help the founders to develop their own patience when doing their work. To start and operate one’s own business is not easy. The three entrepreneurs encountered many different situations, which were difficult and tough, and they needed to work more than others, especially when they first started their new businesses. The selected entrepreneurs run their businesses with different kind of products in hand. PAUL Food focuses on healthy food; the company manufactures all its products under the PAUL Food brand. Since these are food products all of them have limited expiration dates. PAUL Food needed to be good at managing its inventory and sales. PAUL Food is a manufacturing business that produces and sells its own products. APD Sport is a business that does not manufacture its own products, but they are a middleman. They order products from the manufacturers at wholesale prices, and after receiving them, they sell them to their customers at retail prices. They can keep their products as long as they want, just as was previously mentioned in Chapter 4. APD sometimes offers credit to their partners by allowing them to receive their products first and pay later. They can do this because their products have no expiration dates, and so no time limitations are involved. Big Bass Water Plan produces drinking water products that it sells on its own. Big Bass products have no expiration date as well. Since their product is “Drinking Water”, which is one of the necessary factors in human daily life, people do not keep it after purchasing it, since they need
63 to use it every day. The production process isn’t complicated, and it is not necessary to use a lot of workers to do the work. The Adventist fundamentals beliefs were part of the internal inspiration that encouraged and pushed these entrepreneurs to have a positive attitude and manage their businesses well. When comparing the selected entrepreneurs, all of them were Adventist members, but the relationship between each of them and their beliefs was at different levels. That was because of differences in their backgrounds, social circles, and surroundings. The positive internal power may be expressed through leadership, only when a person’s mindset, words, actions, and the people around them support these things in the same direction. 6.2 Limitations of the study The researcher was not able to study about the businesses of many other Adventist entrepreneurs because it would have been inconvenient for them, or they were not willing to share information about their businesses as a case study. Some of them also did not wish to share their financial statements. For these reasons, the researcher studied the business launching and operation experiences of these three entrepreneurs who were willing to share their business backgrounds, financial statements, and cooperate with the researcher in the matters that the researcher wished to investigate. The experiences of other Adventist entrepreneurs may differ from those described, and so for this reason, these findings cannot be generalized as applying to all Adventist startups.
64 6.3 Recommendations There were certain things that young Adventists and people who are interested in becoming entrepreneurs soon can learn from this study. These lessons included as the following: (1) To glorify the God in whom they believe, they had better invest in a business with persons who share the same beliefs, because that will lead to less conflict between them and their shareholders or coworkers like the first entrepreneur, Mr. Paul. (2) If one has a chance to invest in a business with a non-believer, prospective Adventist entrepreneurs should make sure that they have their own standards and are always faithful to their beliefs. (3) Before setting up the business, make sure that there is a proper plan with a small budget to try the market first, just to observe the demand. (4) According to the selected entrepreneurs, most of their products or their services were in the Blue Ocean zone (a Blue Ocean Strategy is the simultaneous pursuit of differentiation and low cost to open a new market space and create new demand). (5) Always have a contingency plan such as Plan B and Plan C. It’s necessary for every business to be ready for the Red Ocean zone (a Red Ocean strategy is all about competition. As the market space gets more crowded, companies compete fiercely for a greater share of limited demand). (6) The more sales channels a business has, the more income can be earned. (7) To start one’s own business, start to do every part of the business on one’s own first, to learn and study and gain experiences, to be able to understand and to teach and guide future employees in the proper ways. (8) Focus more on building the business until it is sustainable, and then satisfy the owner’s needs.
65 (9) Learn to embrace failure, since failure is part of success. (10) Make sure to always learn new things and adjust to them in the business. (11) Use soft power to market the business, because that is one of the most powerful channels nowadays. (12) Knowing who you are, what you like, what standards you hold, what you believe in, what are your passions, and what are your weaknesses. Collect your experiences from throughout your lifetime, no matter whether from your own experiences or other people’s experiences. Count your blessings from above and enjoy the moments of your life. And always give thanks in what you have received and see your own value in God’s eyes. This is the best foundation to create the person who you wish to become that will guide you to make the right decisions in life. 6.4 Direction for Future Research Additional research studies could continue to investigate this topic in the future, such as studies about various business categories, for example (1) Studies of small or medium food manufacturing businesses, Such studies could compare differences in various food categories, advantages and disadvantages, their financial performance, their organizational culture, of their food products. (2) Study in Sport category, study by taking samples of business in Sport category to compare the differences, the disadvantage, the advantage, the financial statements, the culture of their organization and their sport products. To see and understand the study results of their business in the sport category of each sample. (3) Study in Drinking water category, study by taking samples of business in Drinking water category to compare the differences, the disadvantage, the advantage, the financial statements, the culture of their organization and their
66 products. To see and understand the study results of their business in Drinking water category of each sample.
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