Today is the day! It is officially the 1-year anniversary of Sole Division! Last November, Sole Division was originally created on Instagram as “Dope Kicks of Blacksburg” with the goal of solving the issues people experience on popular resell platforms such as: unreasonable/expensive fees added to prices, slow response time, and lack of interaction between fellow sneakerheads. We began working towards this vision of a premium service for sneakers and streetwear with the core principle of prioritizing the customer over profit.
It was amazing to see how many people were interacting and interested in Dope Kicks of Blacksburg just after the first 3 days, which motivated us to expand the project from just being an internet platform to a physical shop. For the first pop-up shop last December, we
set up a table with shoes on display at the corner of Patrick Henry and Seneca Drive. Getting to meet some of you face to face and making those first in person sales early on meant a lot to us and gave us all the motivation we needed! We then locked in and put in work towards making the vision a reality. Together, we put in countless hours to enhance our Instagram content, source stock, and run pop-up sales in Blacksburg.
On February 14, 2020 we officially rebranded Dope Kicks of Blacksburg to Sole Division, with the vision of growing our platform beyond the local limits of Blacksburg. Since then, we have seen a ton of growth in our customer base and the scale/quality of our service. In just this past year it has felt like a lifetime, and it would take days to write about it all. So, below we have captured some moments from our journey to give you a peek into what this past year has been like for us! Thank you to everyone for the continual support and to all the amazing people/organizations who have worked with us this past year. We had an amazing first year and are super excited for the future of Sole Division!
December 6th, 2019 & January 24th, 2020: Our first two pop-up shops in Blacksburg.
February 26th, 2020: Award ceremony at the Virginia Tech’s Apex Center for Entrepreneurs Kickstart Pitch Competition granting us with a check to “kickstart” our business idea.
October 3rd, 2020: Our first in-store collab with VT Thrift.