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Patrick Lor on Investing in What Matters
What if the most important investment you'll ever make isn't in a business plan — it's in people? In this episode of The Next Mountain Podcast, Patrick Lor, co-founder of iStockPhoto and Managing Partner of Panache Ventures, shares his journey from bootstrapped entrepreneur to seasoned investor and mentor. We explore how leaving a company behind opened the door to something more meaningful: learning to truly connect with people. From building trust fast to understanding why most mentoring conversations fail, Patrick shows how showing up with genuine curiosity changes everything.
Key Themes:
Why the best investments are built on relationships, not business plans
How ego gets in the way of real connection and how to dissolve it
The art of having conversations that create trust in minutes
Why great mentors listen more than they advise
Building a community of entrepreneurs a decade before they're ready to pitch