BillGuard's community manager Marina Boykos left the U.S. to work at an Israeli startup in Tel Aviv Business Insider/Julie Bort Israel calls itself the "startup nation." Israelis say that technology is the country's No. 1 export.

By some counts, Israel is home to 4,800 startups today. It's also home to least two dozen accelerator/incubator programs in the Tel Aviv area, alone, including some run by Microsoft and Google.

There are more incubators in other cities, too, including a program in Jerusalem run by Jerusalem Venture Partners on a campus so big it has its own restaurant and nightclub.

All of this is to say that as a startup hub, Israel is second only to Silicon Valley.

So it's not easy to name the nation's hottest, most exciting startups because everywhere you turn there are young companies doing really cool things.

Business Insider recently spent a week exploring Israel's super hot startup community, meeting with founders, employees and venture capitalists.

(Disclosure: Microsoft and Jerusalem Venture Partners paid some of the travel expenses for this trip.)

We asked everyone to name the nation's coolest, hottest startups.