Is It Worth Your Time to Work at a Startup? Absolutely.

According to Fast Company, working for a startup is the thing to do these days. TechCrunch, an arbiter of early-stage business wisdom if there ever was one, concurs.

Working for a startup isn’t the same as working for an established, profitable company. In many ways, it’s not even in the same ballpark. Of course, this can be considered a net positive, because startup work is bound to teach you things you’d never learn at a bigger, more conservative firm. If you’re weighing offers from startups and established companies, consider these 10 arguments for the former:

Your Job Won’t Be Boring

No one can accuse startup work of being boring. When you work for a young company, your portfolio is often broad and ill-defined. This forces you to take on multiple roles at any given time — often on an hour-to-hour basis. As the company grows and new hires pick up some of your slack, you’ll have an opportunity to slim down and focus on what you do best. Hopefully, you’ll have learned what you do best from your multi-tasking days.

You’ll Have More Opportunities to Shine

Most startups have a “get it done now” approach. This means more work coming across your desk — and more opportunities to showcase your knowledge, skills, and ability to drive results.

You’ll Probably Be Promoted Faster

Even if you don’t knock every opportunity out of the park, sheer numbers — less competition for a multiplying number of roles in a growing company — dictate that startup work gives you more than your fair share of opportunities for promotion. The alternative, of course, is that the business has a higher likelihood of failure, and you therefore have a higher likelihood of losing your job.

You’ll Learn More

No matter what problem your startup was created to solve, you’re likely to be exposed to a host of issues that you’ve rarely if ever considered before. Asked to boil down the essence of the startup experience to a single sentence, most early stage employees say something to the effect of, “It’s like going to school all over again.” ‘Nuff said.

You’ll Work with Really, Really Smart People

For all sorts of reasons, startup jobs tend to attract higher-quality people than equivalent roles at established companies. This creates a tremendous opportunity to work alongside people who know far more than you do — and maybe, just maybe, absorb some of that magic.

You’ll Get More Attention

Attention-getting cuts both ways: failure is just as visible as success, perhaps more so. But if you relish hands-on, high-touch, collaborative work for which you’re recognized and rewarded, you’ll have more chances to practice it at a startup.

Your Office Will Probably Be Cooler

Staid companies are belatedly getting in on the “cool office” game, but startups still take the cake. If you want to play foosball and lounge in beanbag chairs at work, here’s your chance.

You’ll Have Skin in the Game

Most startups offer some sort of equity-based compensation, so you’ll quite literally have a stake in your work. When every win or setback affects your personal bottom line, you pay a lot more attention to the quality of your work — and the work of your peers.

You’ll See the Fruits of Your Labors

When you work for a startup, your work actually makes a difference, as in, a make-or-break difference. This is a scary prospect for strength-in-numbers types who’d like to be able to hide behind their colleagues or nestle into a forgiving bureaucracy, but it’s an absolute goldmine for people who like seeing the project they finished yesterday affect the bottom line today.

You’ll Learn to Control Costs

Most startups are super-frugal. Even if your personal spending habits leave something to be desired, working for an early-stage business forces you into a frugal mindset, which is a great, lifelong asset, no matter where your next job takes you.

Do All Startups Go to Heaven?

There are no guarantees in life. While we’ve made a pretty compelling case here that you should work for a startup at some point, we can’t guarantee that your startup experience will be a walk in the park — or anything short of disastrous, for that matter. Here’s a look at some counterarguments for working at a startup, courtesy of Inc Magazine — and apparently born of painful experience.

Then again, even a less-than-ideal startup trial can be a great learning experience, even if you never set foot in an early-stage office again. If you’re not afraid to fail, maybe it’s time to take the plunge.