Monica O’Brien is a guest writer from Twenty Set, a blog about personal and professional development for millennials.

One of my friends graduated in June 2007 and was headhunted for a startup after posting his resume on CareerBuilder. He was 20 years-old and had a choice: do the startup or take the other, much safer offer at a larger company. He chose the startup and joined a team of nine employees who built robots for large firms – in the CEO’s father’s basement.

What I failed to mention is how I met my friend – we’ve been coworkers for the past four months. The startup company was doing great business by building the top robots in the industry – but went bankrupt five months after my friend started due to lawsuits from the CEO’s old company.

But my friend survived his first affair with a startup, and you can too – because startups aren’t that risky. Here are three reasons why…

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