If you were on the Sole Collector forums in the early days, you know.
200,000 registered users. A community built long before StockX, GOAT, or SneakerCon even existed, before every sneaker "influencer" had a podcast and a Discord and a blue check. A place where people who actually knew shoes could find each other and just... talk. Argue. Share. Connect.
Today, the last remaining piece of that (the @SoleCollector Instagram account, 1.8 million followers) was converted to a Complex Bets gambling page.
I worked for Sole Collector. I was part of those forums. And I've been watching this happen slowly for years, but today makes it official. What little was left of that community doesn't have a home anymore.
...so I'm building one.
I bought SoleCollector.org. And I'm turning it into a real community hub for the people who were there in those forum days, and for the new generation of sneakerheads who never got to experience what that felt like.
Here's what I'm building:
A forum, because that's where the real conversations happen and still should. Not a comment section. Not a Discord where everything disappears in 24 hours. A proper forum where threads live, knowledge accumulates, and you can actually find something you posted three years ago.
An editorial section for the stories that matter. History, deep dives, the stuff that doesn't fit in a 30-second Reel.
A community spotlight, because the most interesting people in sneakers aren't the celebrities. They're the collectors with 400 pairs in a storage unit, the woman who has every colorway of the Air Max 95, the guy who wear-tested shoes for Nike before most of us knew that was a thing.
And a few other ideas I’ll share as I get this moving.
I want to be honest with you: I don't fully know how to make this work yet. But I know what it's for. It's not to pull anyone away from Complex. It's not to compete with anything. It's for the people who don't care about sponsorships, betting, or follower counts, and just want a place on the internet to talk about sneakers with other people who feel the same way.
This isn't a big media company play. There's no investor deck, no sponsored content strategy, no road to an acquisition. It's me, someone who has been in this industry since 2001, who was on those forums, who brought Eastbay into the blog era, who helped build Complex Sneakers, who was employee number nine at StockX, saying the community deserves a home that isn't going to get turned into a gambling page someday.
And for what it's worth... this morning, when I saw the @SoleCollector handle had been switched to @ComplexBets, I reached out to Joe La Puma and asked if there was any chance I could have the old account. I even offered to use it to support the sneaker stories that Complex still does. I know that's a strange ask. I know the answer I wanted is probably buried somewhere in legal approvals and contractual language and conversations that won't happen quickly, if ever. But I thought it was worth a shot. Complex still plans to use the account. I told him that if that ever changes, if it just sits dormant, I'd love to be the one to archive what I can: the stories, the collabs, the community history. We'll see.
The site is at SoleCollector.org. It's being built right now. The domain may change, but I am in my feels about it right now, and I just wanted to get started.
Here's the thing: these are not my stories to tell. They're yours. They're ours. They're the collective of our experiences, everyone who was on those forums, everyone who bought the magazine, everyone who found their people through that community. If you're reading this and you want to support or contribute to this in any way, hit reply and let me know.
And send this to your friends. Let them take a trip down memory lane.
I'll be posting updates here and on YouTube as the build progresses. I’ll be hitting up all of you that I still have in my contacts. This is going to take some time, and it's going to take a community willing to show up and make it real.
But communities always start the same way: someone shows up first. Then the next person. Then the next.
I'll be there. Come find us.
-Nick / @NickEngvall
P.S. If you have old Sole Collector forum screenshots, magazine issues, or memories worth documenting, I want to hear about them. That history deserves to be preserved somewhere.