Jamshedpur: It happens all the time - a promising social enterprise attracts funding for its early stages but can't graduate when it's ready to scale.

On Thursday, XLRI students had a date with a couple of grassroots-level social entrepreneurs who lived through challenges and came out with flying colours.

The two - Malavika Sharma, owner of Avika Online in Ranchi and Virendra Kumar, owner of Maati Ghar in Jamshedpur - shared their real life experiences with the students with the aim to give them a fair idea about social entrepreneurship.

Virendra, the owner of Maati Ghar which promotes tribal paintings of Jharkhand, talked about his journey and challenges.

"The three major challenges for me were family, finance and legal formalities. It takes a lot of pain and struggle. I wanted to do it because there was an emotional connection towards art. If I wasn't there, the art would be dying. It deserves a good market," said Virendra who holds a BTech degree in industrial engineering from NIT Kurukshetra.

Malavika said she was an accidental social entrepreneur who created the brand Avika Online. "I trusted government schemes which weren't effective. So, my suggestion is to manage and know your finance well before taking a leap," she added.