When was the last time your meeting with a fellow entrepreneur or investor ended with them spiritedly walking away while singing the popular refrain “Mixing business and pleasure shall be your greatest treasure”?

That’s right, never. Besides the fact that entrepreneurs and investors rarely moonlight as bards, the question of whether good friends make good business partners is a wide and dubious grey area.

Some people say you can’t go wrong starting a business with a friend. Others think you must’ve gone off the deep end to risk your friendship in such a way.

No matter what business you’re in, you’ve probably come in contact with a startup, directly or indirectly, in the course of your work.

They come in all shapes and sizes, from consumer-facing products like Foursquare to business-focused technology solutions like the ones we’ve created. But whatever the type of startup, there are some similarities you can expect to find across the board.

Here, we’ve chosen five of these characteristics that make startups a good career choice.

Unemployment rates remain shockingly high in many parts of the country, but that doesn’t stop some forward-thinking companies from offering outrageous perks.

In today’s employment landscape, organizations can cherry-pick the best and brightest; once they get them, great perks keep them loyal to the company and invested in its success.

Happy holidays and best wishes in the New Year from all of us here at Grasshopper!

For those of you who are fans and followers of us on Facebook and Twitter, you probably know that PopSurvey is a sister company of ours that was launched back in November.

Everyone wants to get feedback from their customers and prospects, but up until a month ago you didn’t really have many options for how to get it. Now, you have PopSurvey.

PopSurvey knows that their surveys are the best on the web, so to prove it they decided to challenge their surveys head to head with SurveyMonkey surveys.