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Lars Rasmussen – co-founder of Google Maps and early investor in Canva – has spent decades building, failing, and backing some of the most iconic products of the modern internet.
His perspective on what makes founders succeed goes far beyond technology. It’s about how they think, how they recover, and how they turn rejection into momentum.
His message to founders everywhere?
The tech isn’t the hard part. The mentality is.
1. When Everyone Says “Nobody Cares”
Lars’s journey started with a layoff, a rented room in Berkeley, and a brother who insisted:
“Online mapping sucks.”
At the time, MapQuest dominated the market. Investors said there was no money in maps.
They were wrong.
“We heard it over and over – ‘Your maps are better, but nobody cares.’”
Lars and his brother built it anyway. They rewrote how maps worked on the web, challenged their own assumptions, and eventually sold their startup to Google. The lesson wasn’t about technology. It was about persistence in the face of total disbelief.
Key takeaway:
Every breakthrough starts with someone saying the current thing “sucks.” The job of a founder is to prove them wrong.
2. Scarcity Leads to Clarity
The first version of Google Maps was built, as Lars says, “with chewing gum and safety pins.”
Limited money forced focus. Every decision mattered.
Years later, he’d see the opposite effect inside Google. When resources become abundant, teams chase perfection and lose clarity – a trap he calls the second system syndrome.
“Scarcity forces you to perfect your core value proposition.”
Lars Rasmussen
Co-founder of Google Maps and Panathēnea
It’s why so many great products are born in small apartments, not corporate labs.
Constraints sharpen conviction.
3. The Mindset That Separates Founders
From Google Maps to Canva, Lars keeps coming back to the mindset – the mix of confidence, optimism, and irrational drive that makes founders impossible to ignore.
“Successful entrepreneurship requires borderline pathological optimism.”
Melanie Perkins, Canva’s co-founder, once told him her plan was to build “the biggest, most valuable company in the world.” Not just the biggest design company.
That’s the mindset he wants to see more of in Europe.
How to think like that:
- Operate just outside your comfort zone. Most people can do much more than they think.
- Use fear as fuel. Make it more painful not to try than to try and fail.
- Have confidence in recovery, not in success. You can’t know you’ll win – but you can know you’ll survive.
“Confidence isn’t thinking you’ll succeed. It’s knowing the world won’t end if you fail.”
4. Find Your Frank
The turning point in Lars’s story came from one person: Frank.
Frank wasn’t the biggest investor in the room. But he believed enough to make introductions. And those introductions led, eventually, to Google.
“Everything good and bad that happened traces back to Frank.
Find your Frank.”
Lars Rasmussen
Co-founder of Google Maps and Panathēnea
Founders spend so much energy pitching hundreds of people who say no.
You don’t need hundreds. You need one who says, “I’ll help you.”
5. Lessons in Dealmaking and Investor Psychology
Startups don’t just build products – they navigate humans, hierarchies, and organizations. Lars’s stories are full of signals founders still face today:
- Organizations don’t have one opinion. You talk to the bullish people and think you’re close to a deal – but someone unseen can kill it.
- Big names can bless or curse you. If a top fund shows interest, everyone else follows. But if that fund backs out, it can all collapse overnight.
- Pivot fast when challenged. When Larry Page asked, “Can you make this work in a browser?”, they spent three weeks rewriting everything. It changed the internet forever.
6. What Great Angels Actually Look For
Lars’s investing rule is brutally simple: Founders over ideas.
“I keep a list of world-class, kickass, crazy people I’ve worked with. If they start something, I invest.”
He’s backed over 100 startups. Even after 15 years, he admits he can’t perfectly predict success.
But the pattern is clear: exceptional people, working on something they deeply care about, in environments that push them past comfort.
7. Building Ecosystems That Believe
Now based in Athens, Lars is betting on the region – not with money alone, but with conviction.
He sees one missing ingredient across European ecosystems like Athens and Sofia: mentality.
“The biggest gap isn’t capital or talent. It’s confidence.”
His thesis:
- You can build global companies from here. Canva proved you don’t have to be in Silicon Valley.
- Mindset scales faster than infrastructure. When a country starts believing it can, everything else follows.
8. Beyond the Valley
Can you build a Canva-sized company from Sofia, Athens, or Warsaw?
Lars’s answer: Absolutely.
Any city with great universities and ambitious talent can do it – if the founders believe they can.
And if the ecosystem believes in them.
“It’s 100% possible to build from here. The biggest missing ingredient is mentality.”
Lars Rasmussen
Co-founder of Google Maps and Panathēnea
9. The Real Takeaway
Building Google Maps wasn’t about maps.
Investing in Canva wasn’t about design.
And building strong ecosystems isn’t about copying Silicon Valley.
It’s about proving that great companies – and great founders – start with one belief:
Of course we can.
