Interested in becoming a social entrepreneur, but not quite there yet? Check out Mrim Boutla’s awesome piece on useful resources that can help you achieve success in your pursuits:

Over the past twenty years, social entrepreneurs have shown that we can successfully use market-driven approaches to solve social and environmental complex problems. Ben and Jerry’s and Patagonia may have been the pioneers, but others such as Whole Foods, Seventh Generation and Stonyfield Farms continue to show that aligning authentic purpose with profits can breed high customer loyalty and low employee turnover.

That doesn’t mean it’s easy. Here are five tips that can make it easier to launch and grow a for-profit mission-driven venture:

1. Research The Ecosystem

Just as for-profit enterprises need to do a competitive analysis, you need to do plenty of research on your field and others who are tackling the same problems you are. Are there social enterprises out there that can help you learn best practices you can use to launch or grow your own? Could you partner or get hired to build a new arm of a social enterprise instead of founding your own? Networks such as the Impact Hub, Ashoka, Echoing Green, the Skoll World Forum, the Unreasonable Institute, and the Ayllu Map of Social Enterprises can save you a lot of time and energy when it comes to identifying like-minded social enterprises, potential partners, and impact investors.

Full piece here.