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If you’re fortunate enough be the recipient of numerous startup offers, congratulations! The most important career choice you can make is choosing the best company, particularly during your initial years. A company that is growing and managed by a competent team with strong competitive moats will be the most rewarding for your professional and personal success. Therefore, the most important question becomes: how can you assess each company to determine which is right for you?

As someone who recently went through the same process I’ve put together my thoughts on the most important aspects to take into consideration when joining the startup world into five suggestions. If you consider these factors into account before accepting an offer, you’ll be much happier as opposed to if you simply selected the company that offered the most delicious snacks.

1. Think as an investor, not an employee.

Making a decision on a job offer is an act of taking a concentrated investment in a single company. In the Bay Area, the equity component of the package of compensation could be greater than 50 percent. Equity is typically held for a number of years, which means joining a startup can be viewed as taking a loan against the future in order to invest. But, few people choose job offers with the same rigor and analytical thinking as an investor.

What is thinking like an investor refers to when selecting a job? In essence, it is about prioritizing the factors that are crucial to the overall success of the business including market growth opportunities in preference to more irrelevant factors such as office space or corporate perks. These aspects aren’t in themselves important but they can aid you in your professional growth and build stronger relations with your colleagues at an expanding company.

Understanding the business model of your company is essential. Also, consider the possibilities of either growth or failure. You can understand both the upside and the risk by assessing the likelihood of either.

2. Evaluate the competitive advantages.

What is the firm’s competitive advantages Do they have the potential to grow or diminish in the future? As an example, Affirm, a consumer loans startup is a company with moats that are getting stronger every day. The more partners Affirm signs, the better the product will get, which in turn entices more members to join.

One heuristic I like to apply when trying to figure out a company’s competitive advantages is to calculate the costs of replicating their business. What is the cost a competitor replicate the business, and scale up to the current size so that it could be profitable? For example, it would be almost impossible for someone to copy Facebook’s features or win over its users given the incredible effect of Facebook’s network.

3. Learn about the mission and performance of leaders.

Offshore Company Formation Dubai can make a difference in whether your business’s competitive edge will increase or decrease in the near future. It is important to ensure that the leadership is focused on the customers of their business and how they can improve their experience. You can examine their previous records to gauge the effectiveness of a business’s leadership team. Are they a successful founder business owner? What strategies have they used to accomplish their goals? You can easily answer these questions by speaking to employees currently employed at the company, as well as doing a bit of background research.

4. Do your own research about the company’s past valuation history.

Many startups suffer not because of poor execution, but from unrealistic expectations. Startups that have a valuation that is that is growing faster than their revenue are more likely to experiencing disappointment in the near future. A downround can be negative to your morale and to the value of your stocks. It is possible to monitor the performance of your company in the past and compare them to its valuation trend to determine its value.

You can also investigate the investors of a business. What is their name and their track records? How many investors have remained with the firm over more than one funding round? The most reputable venture capital companies have likely conducted a good amount of due diligence already and you are able to draw on their research.

5. Favor great people.

Your career development is enhanced when you work with talented people. It works in a variety of ways — first having a group of experts and knowledgeable colleagues can maximize your opportunities to learn. This also encourages you to emulate their experience and their success that in turn encourages you to produce high-quality work. There are mentors who can help you make an an impact and accelerate your career.

Interviews are a fantastic method of determining this. If the interviewers are noticeably passionate about the company and their work this is a positive sign because it means they’re motivated to perform top quality work. Be aware that, despite the fact that you might think that interviewers are required to prove that they’re passionate about their businesses It’s extremely difficult to fake passion.

These five tips helped me tremendously when I was searching for a job. I am delighted to be employed by Affirm. Though everyone will have their own standards of evaluation, I believe these tips will be useful. If you’re interested to learn more about the possibilities for employment at our company, go to our careers page.