Hello All - ! ****Newbie Alert

[Almond Twist]

Hello all -

My name is Steve Mullholand and I just joined the board. I come from a totally different collecting world... I'm sure you have seen it in the news sometimes... sneakers. Yeah - I'm a grown ass man with a bunch of sneakers. But I have an excuse - I created the largest sneaker magazine in the world named: Sole Collector. We print in the US and in China. I sold the US part of the company last year and am now focusing on China.

I also have a firm understanding of forums / forum wars / and dickheads. I created a forum on EzBoards in 1999 called Instyleshoes (ISS) and it grew from 700 people the first year to over 400,000 now with more than 5,000,000 unique visitors per month when I sold it. When I started solecollector.com the community was really pretty small. The only other competition was 20,000 members in the beginning. But as with all good things - it blew up and I went for a hell of a ride. I was able to interview and photograph people like MJ / Kobe / Melo / Wade / LeBron / NAS / Ludacris to name a few.

So now I'm onto some real exciting projects and a few of them are in the card world. The reason I like forums so much is because forums are where the "true" collectors are at. Anyone can like something on FB but it takes real passion to create a user account and help others on to realize their dreams. And speaking about help - I need it a lot of it!

This looks like a real clean and active forum - can't wait to see what the community is truly about._steve

[lolo]

Welcome to UC !

[MagikFingerz]

Welcome, Steve!

Sneakers is IMO a much more rational thing to collect, since it's more functional than a deck of cards. I've never been very into the aesthetics of shoes myself, but researching sports and exercise in my degree I've read some interesting studies on shoe design in relation to performance (feel free to make a thread in General if this is something you want to discuss further ).

Not to mention that pretty much every woman on the planet "collects" shoes

[Almond Twist]

Did I just get called a woman ?! Heheeee

[Jock1971]

Hi Steve welcome to UC , You`ll get loads of help here.
Are you interested in collecting or are you designing a sneeker deck ??

[MagikFingerz]

Did I just get called a woman ?! Heheeee

Oh no, that's not what I meant

Merely the fact that 50% of the population is overly interested in shoes, makes it much easier to rationalize to most people.

[Eoghann]

Hey Steve!

I have problems enough as it is with storage space for tiny decks of cards. Can't even imagine the area you need for a sneaker collection! Care to share any pics?

[Almond Twist]

Hi Steve welcome to UC , You`ll get loads of help here.
Are you interested in collecting or are you designing a sneeker deck ??

Both. I'll never be the hardest core collector nor the most talented designer - my goal is to be happy at both and go from there.

[Almond Twist]

Hey Steve!

I have problems enough as it is with storage space for tiny decks of cards. Can't even imagine the area you need for a sneaker collection! Care to share any pics?

Here is my sneaker closet as of a few years ago. These are the shoes that were in my rotation for work... meaning walking anywhere in public - ! And alas... it has gotten worse - but it really isn't fair because I worked in the sneaker industry. I'm given sooo many free shoes and I can't sell the ones given to me. That is totally looked down upon.

[SBurk49]