Biography

The Short and Sweet Version:

Patrick is an entrepreneurial business professional with expertise in the areas of strategy, operations management and marketing. His latest venture was iStockphoto.com, where he also led the company in finance, IT, and business development in his role as EVP and director. He joined iStockphoto pre-revenue, and upon his departure, the company was selling over 12 million images annually. iStockphoto became the world’s most successful web 2.0 stock photography company, and was sold to Getty Images, a NYSE company, for US$50,000,000 in February of 2006. He is now actively seeking his next venture.

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The Extended Version (grab a cup of coffee):

I was born in 1967 in Hong Kong. In 1972, we immigrated to Canada. This was a huge sacrifice for my parents - while they had solid careers in Hong Kong, they lacked the language skills necessary to continue their white collar jobs in Canada. They saved up enough money to purchase a grocery store in Calgary, Alberta. As a kid, I remember mopping floors and stocking shelves at the store most nights of the week. My Dad always reminded me that I could become anything I wanted (as long it involved being a doctor, engineer or lawyer!).

After graduating from high school, I was accepted into the University of Calgary. During my undergrad studies in the Sociology Department, I discovered a great little computer called the Macintosh. I immediately took out a $5,000 student loan to buy a Mac 512k. I helped friends and family publish newsletters and business forms, and even did a little Mac/PC file conversion work at a small software company.

My first job after graduation was with the City of Calgary Parks & Recreation Department, where I established and ran the design department based on Macintosh computers and applications such as Aldus PageMaker and Adobe Illustrator.

In 1994, I was being recruited by the same small software company mentioned previously - Image Club Graphics. On the day that I joined, they announced that they had been acquired by Adobe. For 2 years, I managed the catalog department, where we printed over 1 million catalogs each month. After that, I managed the product development department, and was responsible for the creation of digital photography, fonts, clip art, and digital media products. We marketed our products as a billion-dollar company, but operated like an entrepreneurial venture out of a converted warehouse in Calgary.

Adobe had completed a string of successful mergers through the 90's. Then, they decided to buy FrameMaker - and the stock dropped 33% on the announcement. Adobe was in turmoil, and it decided to trim all non-core divisions. Image Club was one of those divisions.

After that, I decided to go back to school to get an MBA. I chose the Alberta Executive MBA program, because it would allow me to study and work during the two years that the program took. So, from 1999 to 2001, I earned an MBA while consulting for a variety of companies, from non-profits to internet design & advertising agencies.

After consulting for a variety of dot.bombs, I ran into an old Adobe colleague near the end of 2001. Bruce Livingstone had started a stock photography community, and was giving away digital photography for free! Back in 2001, there wasn't any low-cost photography on the web that was worth mentioning. I immediately fell in love with the concept and convinced him to hire me in exchange for an equity stake, no salary required. Luckily for me, he accepted.

Together, we worked every bootstrapping and guerrilla marketing tactic to build the company. We ended up creating the world's leading web 2.0 stock photography company by building a great crowdsourcing community and an innovative credit-based purchasing system, as well as recruiting an incredible group of evangelists, ranging from Guy Kawasaki, Scott Kelby and Russell Brown to the local independent designers competing with world-class agencies. iStockphoto has been featured in every significant story related to crowdsourcing and web 2.0 companies, including Wired, Time, and BusinessWeek.

In February of 2006, iStockphoto was acquired by Getty Images for $50 million USD. At the age of 38, I had achieved financial independence for my wife Theresa, and our two boys, Nicholas and Andrew, now ages 10 and 8. I retired from iStockphoto in May of 2006, and have since been dedicating more time to family and charity work. I've also been invited to various events to speak about the iStockphoto experience. And of course, I'm on the lookout for the next great entrepreneurial opportunity!