Advice for new social entrepreneurs — Part 2

Three more lessons for early-stage social entrepreneurs.

Last week, we brought you part one of our advice series. It covered realistic expectations, educational resources and the importance of a good business model. This week brings three more lessons for early-stage social entrepreneurs, gathered from nearly a hundred interviews with the founders and directors of social enterprises worldwide.

4. Create a support system

Find mentors, partners and board members with strengths you lack. They’ll spot flaws and opportunities that you might miss. If you’re just starting out, try to intern with a social enterprise you admire. You can learn from them while you build your business plan.

• “Surround yourselves with people who are way smarter than you. Ask people a lot of questions. I’ve learned a lot from [my cofounder] Grace, because she is so curious and humble and she asks question after question. We just want to learn from people. And when you just ask for questions and advice, people naturally rally around you.” — Lauren Lancaster, Co-founder of Songs Against Slavery
• “Have somebody in your corner, a cofounder or a mentor, who has strengths that you don’t have. Often we want to change the world, but somebody needs to bring you back down and vice versa. If you’re the detail person with no aspirational goal, then your company will stay the same forever. Have someone who will push your boundaries.” — Lauren Carpenter, Co-founder of BRANDED Collective

5. Know your customer

Try to imagine who would use your product or service, and stop thinking of your audience as a broad, faceless target. Make real things for real people.

• “Make sure that there’s a business need in the community. Your product needs to solve a problem or meet a need. You can’t expect people to come to a café just because it’s doing a good thing. You shouldn’t open a social enterprise if a regular for-profit is already doing the same thing. Do market analysis, conduct some research and make sure you’re competitively priced, because you can’t just rely on your social mission story.” — Kate Thoene, Social Enterprise Director of Beneficial Beans
• “Whether you have a product or a system or a service, go talk to your neighbors. Talk to the people who might use it. Do your research. That will help you be a better system designer. Do that before building your website or thinking about cosmetics.” — Servane Mouazan, Founder and CEO of Ogunte
• “Make sure you have a customer. And if not, figure out how to turn people into customers. You need some semblance of a market.” — Alexander Williams, Owner of Blue Earth

6. Take your time

Don’t be in a rush to scale up. Take time to think through your ideas and to explore several potential revenue streams and models.

• “Growth takes money. It sounds simple, but you need to put a lot of thought and energy into scaling up. It will take a lot of resources, and it’s not something to take lightly.” — Shawn Seipler, Founder and President of Clean The World
• “Don’t scale up too soon. Targets are so important to reach before you scale, because otherwise you’ve just made your problems bigger.” — Anna Noyons, Chief Product Officer of Peerby

Stay tuned for the third and final installment of our advice series next week, and catch up on the first installment here. As always, let us know what you think in the comments. What’s the best advice you’ve received?

Can’t wait until next week? Visit Social Enterprise Alliance’s Knowledge Center for additional resources.