171: Patrick Lor - Empowering Visual Storytellers

"[As an entrepreneur] being humble...allows you to forgive other people's mistakes and admit your own." - Patrick Lor

About: Patrick Lor - Co-founder & CEO of Dissolve

Overview: Patrick is a determined entrepreneur in Canada who shares his experiences of working in the tech. His current company, Dissolve, sells high quality stock video clips, and although he is up against some big competitors he has proven to be successful and works extremely hard towards his goals.

Highlights:

About Dissolve: Dissolve is a company that sells high quality stock video clips and has been around for about a year and half. They look for people that have a great artistic eye, buy their video clips, and use them for web-based advertising work, corporate training videos, editorial and documentary settings, along with interactive web sites, video games and mobile applications. These clips are typically about 10-30 seconds long. Currently, they have 550,000 clips and are looking to grow that well over a million clips this year.

Getting the Word Out: Dissolve has dedicated a lot of money to marketing. Their core marketing methodology is to use video marketing. They create their own videos with their clips and push them out on YouTube, social media, etc. Those videos are then re-tweeted and written about because they tell compelling stories. All of the videos they create for marketing are done in house. Another thing they have done is put out direct mail to potential customers (a 2 booklet set) that advertises better footage, and better stories.

Employees: Dissolve's goal is to obtain 5-6 more employees this year, some on sight and some to work remotely. They allow flexibility where employee's can work from home and take time off.

Biggest Challenge for Dissolve: Patrick shares that obtaining resources is their biggest challenge. He feels they could use a little more of everything, but to get there they need more resources. Dissolve's goal is to double their product, and quadruple the size of their customer base.

Patrick's Entrepreneurial Background: Patrick started a company, iStock, around 2000 and eventually sold the company to Getty Images. This experience has helped him start and run Dissolve.

Goals: Patrick understands that it takes a village to accomplish what they need to accomplish, so they are going to continue to focus on getting the best creative content, and provide that to the world.

Advice for Entrepreneurs: Be lucky. Don't be so obsessed with being perfect, but work really hard and focus on the right things. Work with people that are amazing and trustworthy and won't fold under pressure. The first six months of any company is incredibly tough. Stay humble, it will allow you to forgive others for their mistakes and to forgive yourself.

Connect With Patrick:

Website | Facebook | @PatrickLor | LinkedIn | AboutMe

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