Lithuania Has Fewer People Than Los Angeles. Its Startups Go Global Anyway

Lithuania's entire population is smaller than that of Los Angeles, and that arithmetic — not abundance — is what shapes how its founders build companies. That claim comes from an opinion column published by Entrepreneur, in which an unnamed contributor recounts a year of meetings with founders and investors across the Baltics, Georgia and Guatemala.

The author attended three events: Baltic Fintech Days, a 500 Global Eurasia Demo Day in Tbilisi, and Volcano Summit in Guatemala. The column is first-person analysis, not a reported survey. It cites no funding figures, no valuations and no named companies — a gap worth flagging before treating its lessons as data.

What do small markets force founders to do differently?

The core observation: founders in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Georgia and Guatemala cannot rely on a large domestic market, abundant venture funding or proximity to powerful networks. Latvia has fewer than 2 million residents. Georgia has fewer than 4 million. Even Guatemala, the largest market the author visited, holds only a fraction of U.S. purchasing power.

The consequence, per the author, is that international expansion is not a distant ambition but part of the original business model. At Baltic Fintech Days, the author met entrepreneurs already working through cross-border payments, compliance and market entry — at a stage when an American startup might not have considered any of them.

The column frames this as a discipline advantage. Scarcity leaves less room for what the author calls "performative hiring," unnecessary tools or growth untethered from customer demand. The concrete test offered: ask what the company would prioritize with half the budget, half the team and half the time. The answer, the author argues, reveals which initiatives are essential. The caveat is implicit — no evidence in the column shows these companies outperform their venture-funded peers; the argument rests on logic, not outcomes.

Can geography work as an asset rather than a limitation?

Small markets are usually described by what they lack. The author pushes back with a regional breakdown:

• The Baltics have built expertise in fintech, digital infrastructure and cross-border business.
• Georgia sits at the intersection of Europe and Asia and is producing founders used to operating across multiple markets.
• Guatemala offers access to Central America, proximity to the United States, and founders with firsthand knowledge of industries and consumers that global investors poorly understand.

At Volcano Summit, the value was not merely bringing international investors into Guatemala, the author writes. It created a place where local and regional founders could build relationships without first relocating to San Francisco, Miami or New York.

The sharpest line in the column reframes the whole question: "The most compelling question is not, 'Why would a major company come from this market?' It is, 'What can a founder see from this market that others cannot?'" A founder who understands regional payment behavior, informal commerce, remittances or local regulation may spot an opportunity before an outsider does.

Why does storytelling count as a business capability here?

Founders in well-known ecosystems benefit from familiar signals — investors recognize the schools, employers and accelerators around the table. Founders from less visible markets must establish credibility without those shortcuts.

The strongest founders the author encountered did not simply explain their products. They connected a local problem to a larger shift: a payments challenge became a story about global commerce; a compliance product became infrastructure for the international workforce; a regional marketplace became evidence of changing consumer behavior across emerging economies.

A strong pitch, the author argues, must answer four questions: Why does this problem matter? Why is the opportunity larger than it first appears? Why is this team uniquely equipped? And why is now the right moment? Investors, the column warns, may read an unfamiliar market as a small one — the founder's job is to separate the starting point from the destination.

What about relationships?

In mature hubs, founders can mistake proximity for access — dozens of events, hundreds of contacts, little material help. In smaller ecosystems, the author writes, relationships function as infrastructure. One trusted introduction can reach a customer, investor or market otherwise out of reach. Government agencies, accelerators, diaspora networks and local operators play an outsized role in helping companies cross borders.

The practical advice: build trust with the right people rather than collecting contacts, and become useful — share market intelligence, make introductions — before asking for anything. "In smaller ecosystems, reputations travel quickly. Generosity and reliability compound."

What should readers weigh?

The column closes with a claim that is partly faith: talent is distributed more evenly than capital, and the next category-defining company may come from a market investors rarely visit. The author is careful on one point — the Baltics, Georgia and Guatemala are not interchangeable and should not be reduced to a single "emerging markets" label. Each has distinct strengths, challenges and history.

What the piece does not provide is performance data. No survival rates, no revenue comparisons, no evidence that lean-building founders in small markets outlast their well-funded counterparts through downturns. The argument is that scarcity creates discipline, and discipline compounds — plausible, but asserted rather than demonstrated. As venture capital turns more selective and growth-at-all-costs falls from favor, that thesis will face a live test in exactly the markets the author toured.