My 30-year career after HBS started as a serial entrepreneur in the Silicon Valley, followed by 15 years building my own venture fund. Through it, I’ve been privileged to be a part of over 100 early- and growth- stage companies, as well as teach at UC Berkeley’s Haas School and University of Cambridge in the Entrepreneurship area.

In the past 15 years there has been enormous amount of focus on early stage entrepreneurship, "incubators," and the birth of a new companies Hundreds of incubators exist to assist these "new-borns." This is true in the social impact section as well as the technology for-profit sectors. Many angel groups and networks now exist to fund these entities as well.

In the technology (for-profit) sectors, as a company grows, it can obtain assistance and funding from venture funds, private equity and the public markets. This is not true in the social impact space.

Social enterprises who are in their adolescent ("scale-up" or growth) stage have fewer choices — there are very few entities focused on this stage of growth in the social sector. These social impact organizations are seeking ways to build upon a core product, market, or business model and "scale" to sustainability (with not-for-profits) or profitability (with for-profits).

Read the full article about social enterprise scale-ups by Randy Haykin at hbs.edu.