A startup founder asked for my advise a few months ago. He had an idea for a venture but wasn’t sure if it was a good idea, so he was considering a second option. We had a quick discussion where he gave me the pros and cons of each of the options, and mentioned repeatedly that he thought the first option was the right one for him. I thought differently.

Startup founders have one chance to make their startups work; while the entire startup concept is statistical (more than 90% of startups fail, etc) for the startup founder there is success or failure, zero or one.

When I was a young startup founder and my startup first starting selling in the US, I did all the US sales from Israel. Every single sale, from $100 to $100,000 was done virtually: via email, webinar, and phone and never in person. Since I didn’t want to tell my American customers that we were still a small, Israeli-based startup, I preferred to give them the impression that we are an established US company based in Virginia.

How important is your startup to you? Is it important enough that you are willing to be embarrassed in order to help it succeed?

Most of you are saying “yes” right now. So I’ll ask you an obvious follow-up question: when was the last time you embarrassed yourself for your startup?