Faith, Beauty, and Business
By Steven Mercado, 11min read
In this episode of The Bread Podcast, hosts Andy Chung and Ariel Silva talk to Brian Chung, co-founder of Alabaster Co. Brian shares his perspective as an artist, how he plugs that into his life as a businessman, and how he points all he does to worship our beautiful creator. Here is some of what Brian shared:
GOD’S WORD THROUGH A DIFFERENT LENS
When Brian first came to the faith, his first time looking through a Bible sparked a thought that later progressed into something much bigger.
“I remember my first time getting a Bible as a Christian, I was really excited, but also a little intimidated. I don't know if people resonate with that at all. I flip through the first couple of pages, and it wasn't the story of Genesis -- it was things to fill out space, it was about the translation [of the Bible]. I finally got to the story of Genesis and the text was really dense, it was a little hard to read. Flip on to the New Testament, some words were in red, others were in black, I didn't know what that meant at that time. On top of that, it was on really thin paper, and you know, just as someone who didn't grow up Christian, this book was unlike any other book that I had experienced. Sitting next to me was my marketing textbook, and for the first time in college, I felt excited to read my college textbook because my marketing textbook was designed like a magazine. I just thought to myself, oh, what if the Bible was designed differently?”
CURIOSITY COMING TO FRUITION: ALABASTER CO’S ORIGINS
“I'm having this conversation with my friend, soon to be co-founder, his name is also Bryan Chung, about art and faith, and you know, both of us are Korean people. Bryan was into animation, photography, and painting. I was into graphic design. We kept pondering about this question of, ‘How can we show the world that God is good and beautiful? What can we do with this next generation asking that spiritual question?’ He was just thinking about some ideas of what to do, he wanted to launch a magazine, and I shared my experience with the Bible, and I was like, why don't we design the Bible in this sort of new, beautiful way? His eyes lit up, he got super excited, and he was like, "Let's do this!" We launched a Kickstarter in 2016. Looking back, we pretty much did everything wrong. We thought it was a good idea not to tell people about it. We went to a local print shop, we printed 12 pages of what we think it would look like, everything else was blank, we just made some mock covers up, so if you see our Kickstarter, it's blank inside except 12 pages. We put it out there, and immediately, our friends started sharing it. Eventually, it got some press news, and this little project turned into something bigger than that.”
Original Kickstarter Mockup
(source: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/519726203/alabaster-the-bible-beautiful)
INTENTION AND BEAUTY
What makes Alabaster different is we add beautiful imagery and thoughtful design into each individual book of the Bible. We're thoughtful about negative space, we're thoughtful about the typography, we're thoughtful about the photography alongside the text, and helping people deepen their experience with God. For us, as Christians, we know the story of God was beautiful and we wanted to create a beautiful reading experience.
BEAUTIFUL WORSHIP: BEHIND THE NAME “ALABASTER CO”
We're fans of the Bible, first and foremost, and we were thinking about if there are any times that Jesus mentions the word "beautiful" or "beauty" in regards to the question that Gen Z will be asking, which is, "What is beautiful?" There is this passage in Mark, and it's titled, "The Women with the Alabaster Flask." It's this woman who has this expensive alabaster flask and breaks it in front of Jesus. Everyone sort of scoffs at her, and Jesus says, "Stop it. This woman has done a beautiful thing." For us, that has been a sort of inspiration for not just our name, but for our company: What does it look like to lead in this sacrificial way? We think that woman was the first recorded interpretive art piece, where it's like, oh, there's this flask that's just supposed to be used as a dowry and is now used as worship for God.
REMOVING BARRIERS: BEING EXCELLENT FOR GOD
I think why I deeply value excellence first is I see that as a form of worship to God. I'm going to put all of my effort into creating something that is excellent into the world. I think another thing is that I helped to lead gatherings on campus for people who were curious about faith and spirituality. At those gatherings, we had music, we had dance, we had a speaker, sort of like a church service, but what was really important for us in these gatherings was for people who aren't religious to come in and experience God. The question that always came to mind was, "Does the music have to be good? Do the singers have to be good?" For me, I was like, yes, they need to be, because when you think about people who aren't religious entering these gatherings, or any gathering that has music, what are the comparables? They're really good quality. It's a symphony, or it's a concert, and these artists are excellent in their craft. So when you enter a worship service, or a service that has Christian music, if you aren't religious, that could be a little distracting. Like, oh, that person is out of tune, oh no! It's been like, how can I remove these different barriers, and sometimes those barriers are someone who isn't well-rehearsed, or not practiced enough, so that people can really appreciate the art, and so that art can ultimately point people to God.
CAN CHRISTIANS BE EXCELLENT? BREAKING THE STIGMA
That's why it's really important in our company and how we do things. When people think "Christian company," there's also, unfortunately, this reality that Christian businesses are poorly-run businesses. I would talk to some of my friends who are in the business world, they say, if I ever hear someone is a Christian business, I kind of stay away because I've been hurt before. They're sort of loose on the deadlines, they don't pay me on time, or it's about the heart and not necessarily doing the right things, if that makes sense? For better or for worse...mostly worse? So it's been important for us to say no, we are going to pay people on time, we're going to respect what people charge, and also, how are we going to run an excellent business?
We have gotten feedback from people who do not like what we do, and I think that's totally fine. For us, what is important is that we are still loving to the people that disagree and we are sticking to what we believe God has given us as a vision and a mission for the company, which is to show all of humanity that God is good and beautiful. We're just sticking to that because that's where we feel that God has been leading us. With that being said, if it's feedback that is helpful, we bring it to the team and we talk about it. We're not a company that thinks we've got it all together or that we're a perfect company, we're a company that continually improves and tries to improve.
BUSINESS AS A CHRISTIAN: LOVE GOD AND LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR
In 2018, we were approached by an investor. He is studying at Fuller [Theological Seminary] right now, and initially, our meetups were just because he wanted to mentor us. He doesn't just mentor us in terms of business stuff, but he also helps us think about the theology in business, how he runs his company, how he integrates his faith into his business, and one of the things that has stuck with me is he reminds us to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves, and applying that in all aspects of business and work. I already mentioned the "love God” pieces, like hey, I want to do things with excellence, I want to run my business with excellence, that is going to be my place where I worship God: through my work. But the other part is, how do I love my neighbor? How do I love my employees really well? How do I love my customers really well? That is the focus. Love God, love your neighbor.
Nowhere in that did he say profit or revenue is the focus. I was a little shocked by that because I know that, in a business, you have to think about revenue, you have to think about profit. If you are making money, you can't exist unless you become a nonprofit and accept donations. So I posed that question to him, and he said, "Profit is the result. If you're producing a good product, you're running an excellent business, if you're loving people well and loving your customers well, you will have profit. You will make money." He says that's never the goal, but it's the result of doing good work.
OVERLOOKED FACTORS WHEN STARTING A COMPANY
People overlook the importance of sales. If you can't sell, if people aren't buying your product, you ultimately don't have a business. People will tend to worry about a lot of things … but at the end of the day, will people buy it? Are you solving a customer's need? If you aren't, or if you're not talking to your customer, then something's wrong.
Second is your finances. Knowing how to read a financial statement is incredibly important. What does a profit and loss statement look like, your statement of cash flows, your balance sheet ... We made a lot of mistakes because we didn't know how to read this things properly, so I would just learn the basics.
The third thing I would say is people overlook just doing it. Just doing it, making mistakes, but just going for it. I think, at times, we're so nervous about putting the perfect product out there, the perfect service, making sure everything is perfect. Companies will never be perfect, but we can constantly improve. Just go out and try. Yes, I have had four successful Kickstarters, but I've also had a numerous amount of failure businesses that people don't ask me about. I've made a lot of mistakes, I've made a lot of failures, we've released products that didn't perform as well as we were hoping for, and that's okay because you learn from there.
HOW TO FIND REST AS A WORKAHOLIC
I think also what's been helpful for me in terms of giving my space to rest is being grateful. It is easy for me to see the things that I have not done well, or to compare myself to other businesses, or to compare myself to other peers and see all their numbers -- everything is on social media and it's stressful sometimes, and I forget the things that I've been given, the things that God has given me, and to be thankful for that. One of the things I do also in the morning is I write down a list of things that I'm grateful for. Small little things, like today, I'm grateful that today, I can breathe and that the air is not smoky. To large things, like thank you for that press article that was written about us. Having that has been helpful for me to stop.
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE REMEMBERED FOR?
2019 was a really full season for me. It was the year that I went full-time with Alabaster -- everyone went full-time. It was a year of really great growth for Alabaster. It was the year that people knew who I was because I've been on the news or on social media. People knew about Alabaster more. It was a season where I had more money coming into my bank account than ever before … Many hours put into work and I think, in 2020, what God has been teaching me is about the fragility of life, and what do I want to be remembered for? When I leave this place and there are people still here on Earth, what do I want them to say about me? I think I lost sight of the relationships outside of my work and the friendships outside of my work. I was loving my employees well and my customers well, which is really, really great, but there are also people in my life that I want to love well and share life with them. So I made a list of people in my life that I want to continue to live life with and continue to want to have deep relationships with. I made it a discipline to have scheduled times after work to have a good conversation with them.
We hope you enjoyed this installment of The Bread Podcast. You can hear the full conversation by looking up “The Bread Podcast” on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Be sure to check out our previous episodes as well!
