“High risk, high reward” is a phrase commonly used to describe the world of private investing, where the money bypasses Wall Street for Main Street, Silicon Valley or any locale where promising ventures bubble up.

This is a landscape glowing with potential, yet littered with heartbreak, so it helps to have a road map to get you there and back without breaking the bank. Here, nine experts offer recommendations for finding a private investment that has the best chance of taking you to the best destination of all: Easy Street.

Visit the company. One of the best ways to know what you’re investing in is to see what you’re investing in close up.

“Examine how [the company] spends money on their offices, dress, cars,” says Richard Trimber, senior counsel of the corporate practice group at General Counsel in McLean, Virginia. “Examine their sales and marketing system to make sure they have a developed pipeline to sustain growth and understand how your investment capital will accelerate that or take them into additional markets.”

[See: 7 Dividend Stocks to Buy That Pay More Each Year.]

Know where private sector becomes public victor. Does an energy company, for example, have as much of a chance to go public as one working on an electric car?

“One way to look at [where to invest] would be to see what sectors IPOs are coming from,” says Drew Pascarella, a finance lecturer at Cornell University’s Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management.

He adds that in 2015, a down year for IPOs, 56 percent came from two sectors: health care (42 percent) and technology (14 percent).

Heed the yellow and red flags. Even if a company looks solid, it helps to know the hurdles it will definitely face.

Though high-tech has a healthy share of IPOs, it’s far from a slam dunk sector, as 85 percent of early stage businesses never make it past those initial Series A funding rounds, says James R.F. Berkeley, managing director of Ellice Consulting in London.

“What kills investors is unsubstantiated valuations that leave no wiggle room,” he says.

Another warning sign: “A high concentration of business revenues earned from a single or couple of clients, where ownership of the client relationship is opaque,” Berkeley says.

Write your investment thesis. This helps you identify companies that fit a crucial list of desirables, says John Honney, director of business owner consulting at Northern Trust, with headquarters in Chicago.

“If you know the size, location, industry sector and capabilities of the company you want to buy — and the reason you want to buy it — you will kiss fewer frogs,” Honney says. “It can be helpful to focus on industries you know well, such as those where you spent your career or owned companies in the past.”

Look for losses behind the growth. There’s a common misperception that growth is always good.

“But growth can sometimes mask fundamentally bad underlying genetics of a business,” says Vincent Bradley, CEO of FlashFunders, an online equity crowdfunding site based in Santa Monica, California.

He cites Class Pass, a New York City fitness startup.

“They were able to grow fast and big because customers loved their subscription workout model,” Bradley says. “The problem was that the average customer paid $99 per month for a subscription that ended up costing Class Pass well over $99 a month in services.”

[See: 13 Ways to Take the Emotions Out of Investing.]

And that caused negative growth margins.

“Any business that gives their customers a dollar and asks for 75 cents in return is sure to be a hit with their customers,” Bradley says. “But anyway you cut it, that’s a bad business model.”

It’s who you know (and who they know). There’s a big difference for investors who have a direct connection to the leadership team based on years of collaboration.

“In addition to a trust factor, there’s some comfort in knowing the history of the firm and what its growth pattern has been,” says Michael J. Driscoll, clinical professor and senior executive in residence at Adelphi University’s Robert B. Willumstad School of Business.

If you don’t know the founders directly, use your network “to learn about interesting companies that may be in need of capital infusions,” Driscoll says. “This helps to identify companies long on ideas and entrepreneurial spirit, but short on capital.”

Connect with the best. Finding an excellent private company worth your investment dollar “entails connecting with the best entrepreneurs, the best ideas and the best companies,” says Richard Kimball, a Stanford University fellow and managing partner of HExL Advisors, which provides capital and strategic advice in the health care sector.

“Furthermore, investors need experts to help evaluate business strategies, products and services, and management teams.” Kimball says. “Hence it’s essential to build a broad and deep network of industry players to optimize your deal flow, assist in due diligence and then help with recruiting, business development and capital raising.”

The customer is always right. For all the salesmanship private companies use to lure investors, nothing convinces quite like a consumer who’s sold on the product or service.

“There’s an old saying that there’s nothing like real customers to validate the value proposition,” says Dino Vendetti, general partner at Seven Peaks Ventures, an early-stage investment fund based in Bend, Oregon.

“When a startup identifies a real market gap, targets the exact customers who are likely to buy, and finds that they’re willing to pay for the product, we call that product/market fit,” he says. “That’s what we look for with every business we invest in.”

Your Uncle Herman could be dead wrong. It’s easy to trust friends and family asking for funds, but potentially damaging to the relationship if the venture goes south.

Yet there are other risks to consider, says Jared Feldman, a partner at the Anchin accounting firm and co-practice leader of its private client group.

[Read: Build Your Retirement Fund by Changing Your Car-Owning Habits.]

“If an investor’s judgment gets clouded by a personal relationship, they may decide to invest where they might not have done so had it been an opportunity from an unfamiliar source,” Feldman says. “We suggest that even in the case of a personal relationship, and depending on the size of the investment, some form of due diligence should still be completed.”

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Do’s and Don’ts of Investing in Private Companies originally appeared on usnews.com