Adholes was originally founded in 2004 by advertising creative Marc Lefton who recognized the soon to be ubiquitous social media trend. For many seasoned agency veterans, Adholes was the first social network they ever joined. Many basic features we take for granted on social networks today first came to life on our network. Shortly after launch, the Wall Street Journal featured us as “an online cocktail party” where now time-pressed industry people networked.

Five years later, we had been honored by the Webby Awards, had thousands of members, published hundreds of pieces of user generated content, hosted dozens events in a handful of cities across the globe. But our popularity began to wane as more of these conversations were migrating to Facebook and LinkedIn.

Simultaneously, the platform Adholes was built on was an antique and was not only prohibitively expensive to maintain, but increasingly difficult to find coders who knew the language. In 2010, the site was shuttered.

After leaving NYC in 2016, Marc noticed a trend of communities popping up on Slack, a growing communications tool for businesses and teams. Some former members had reached out, saying they missed the “vibe” Adholes had curated. A beta version of a Slack community was launched, with around 100 early pioneers joining. Now two years later, with an easier way to onboard new members, Adholes is ready to start the advertising conversation again and inspire the next generation of talent.