Content, affiliate and the halo effect, with The Sole Supplier CEO George Sullivan

The Sole Supplier is a UK sneaker and streetwear platform that earns much of its income from affiliate commissions. In the first Lessons from Losing episode, founder and CEO George Sullivan tells an Awin interviewer about decisions he regrets, a hard 2024 and why content with few last clicks can still matter to brands.

In this episode

• Sullivan started The Sole Supplier 13 years ago as a way to recommend shoes and earn affiliate income; it reaches about 4.5 million people a month with a team of 35 (1:02, 2:30).

• His biggest regret is stopping YouTube and the podcast around 2019 because millions of views brought no sales; he says rankings and social engagement fell, and brands now say content partners like his lift other channels, so he says the industry must relearn how to measure them (3:00, 3:30, 4:00).

• He shut a resale marketplace in 2016 and turned down investment; he says StockX was later valued at over a billion dollars, a missed market signal (7:03, 7:31, 8:04).

• In 2024 he let 11 people go after eight growth years, citing living costs, higher trainer prices and brands squeezing commissions; it grew again in 2025 (11:01, 11:31, 12:01).

• Sullivan says AI answers took some informational search traffic, but he argues content matters more because AI cites it and brands want share of voice (12:31, 18:02, 18:30).

• A Meta problem ruined one ad account for about two months until a team member found a fix on Reddit; that month brands sent five fixed-fee enquiries, not affiliate ones (18:30, 19:02, 19:30, 20:01).

Interview from Lessons from Losing by Awin, published on YouTube.