Since the age of three a heavy stutter has been a part of his life shaming him shaping him and ultimately building him into the person he is today: devoted husband and father to his wife Melanie and their three children a teacher maggid shiur motivational speaker and a successful business consultant with a passion for helping Israeli startups grow and flourish. It’s an apt profession for a man who has the scrappy remarkable grit of a startup himself. As a child and well into teenage-hood MosheMernick did everything he could to hide. It was simply too embarrassing and frustrating to try to communicate with the world around him. “I wouldn’t order pizza if I felt my stutter coming on. I’d rather go hungry ” he says with a quiet solemnity. “I wouldn’t answer the phone never mind call anyone. I couldn’t say my own name — people hung up on me thinking it was a prank call.” His moniker reflects this angst; Moe is a short more easily pronounced monosyllable than the full “Moshe” — a much safer bet when you can never be sure you won’t get hijacked on the “sh.” A haunting realization for those of us who easily rattle off our own names. But Moe is definitely not one to invoke anything remotely like pity or even sympathy.