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
  

Learn more about Patrick Lor

• Patrick Lor on Linkedin
• Panache Ventures Website