Many studies have explored the use of learning-by-doing in higher education, but few have applied this to social entrepreneurship contexts and applications: this paper addresses this gap in the literature. Our programme involved students working with different stakeholders in an interactive learning environment to generate real revenue for social enterprises. Our results show that learning-by-doing enables students to develop their entrepreneurial skills and enhance their knowledge of social businesses. The findings also show that students became more effective at working in teams and in formulating and applying appropriate business strategies for the social enterprises. Overall, the learning-by-doing approach discussed in this paper is capable of developing the entrepreneurial skills of students, but there are challenges that need to be addressed if such an approach is to be effective.