Don Nechtman shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Good morning Don, we’re so happy to have you here with us and we’d love to explore your story and how you think about life and legacy and so much more. So let’s start with a question we often ask: What’s more important to you—intelligence, energy, or integrity?
What’s most important to me is my faith in God and my family, but if we’re talking traits, the most important is honesty. I live by a moral code where every time I have a conversation, I express myself like there’s a lie detector attached to me, and if I was lying, I’d get zapped. The truth will spare others, and it’s a virtue that God rewards, and even if He didn’t reward it, I would still continue to tell the truth, because that’s what He would want.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I’m from Miami, Florida, specifically North Miami Beach, and I’ve always been inspired by successful people, many of whom turned out to be entrepreneurs. When I was 12, I came up with the concept for a brand called Super Soles, and a few months after graduating high school, I released my first design using money I earned from reselling sneakers and from my first job the summer before starting college at Miami Dade College.
I kept creating new designs using the income I made working at Dunkin’ Donuts, and over time I started gaining recognition on social media. That included hosting a Super Soles pop-up shop during the 2020 holiday season in Fort Lauderdale at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and releasing a sneaker manufactured in Italy in 2021 without any industry connections or support, while only 21 years old.
Eventually, I took a long hiatus from fashion, and the success I’d built gave me the freedom to dropout of college. I tried going back, but school simply wasn’t for me. In 2023, I released an album titled Established, centered around the theme of becoming established and committed to self-improvement. It was released independently through Nechtman Entertainment and distributed by DistroKid. I never planned on becoming a musician, Established was a creative project designed to pair with merchandise, combining my fashion and marketing background. It was my debut and will be my only musical release.
That same year, Super Soles LLC was officially incorporated, and in 2024 the brand was rebranded as Off-Stitch due to domain issues with supersoles.com. Recently, I’ve also been on a personal health journey and have lost 50 pounds over the last two years, shifting my focus from purely financial goals to prioritizing my overall well-being.
Right now, there are ongoing discussions about a potential merger between Off-Stitch LLC and another company. If that happens, I’m not fully sure what my future in fashion will look like, even though I’ve had significant success at a young age. If the merger is finalized, I plan to transition back into content creation, the same passion I pursued in high school and college when I went by my former aliases Yung BTG and BTG, which stands for Beyond The Grind.
Thanks for sharing that. Would love to go back in time and hear about how your past might have impacted who you are today. What breaks the bonds between people—and what restores them?
What breaks the bonds between people, in my experience, often comes down to honesty, money, and jealousy. Being honest can sound critical, but a real friend will offer constructive criticism and give you that push you need to create a game plan to fix your problems. Most people would rather stay comfortable than hear the truth. Lending money can also damage relationships, because it can lead to people taking advantage. And merit brings jealousy, especially when someone you know becomes more successful. That has usually been my experience, and when people start saying negative things out of envy, the mature thing to do is to separate myself.
When it comes to restoring relationships, I don’t claim to have expertise. From my experience, it often feels impossible. Logically, I’m sure there are ways to repair things, but life keeps going with or without certain friendships. If someone wonders whether their life depends on those friendships or not, the honest answer is that it doesn’t.
What have been the defining wounds of your life—and how have you healed them?
Mental health has been one of the defining wounds of my life, especially because it wasn’t always understood in my family. Older relatives didn’t recognize it, and people with their own issues often used me as a scapegoat. I was treated differently because I believed I could achieve big things, and that created a situation where two people could struggle with the same challenges but weren’t treated the same.
I’ve always had big dreams, and many family members didn’t. That difference in mindset created tension, and on top of that, there were cultural layers too. My mother’s side of the family is Hispanic, and my father isn’t, so the mix of expectations, traditions, and perspectives sometimes made things even more complicated.
Healing for me has come from understanding myself, recognizing what’s mine to carry and what isn’t, and separating my identity from other people’s projections. It’s been a process of choosing peace, setting boundaries, and realizing that my dreams aren’t the problem — the way others reacted to them was.
So a lot of these questions go deep, but if you are open to it, we’ve got a few more questions that we’d love to get your take on. What do you believe is true but cannot prove?
God. I can’t prove it in a scientific way, but I know He’s real because of how He’s shaped my life. I grew up with a lot of self‑doubt, and now I’m the most confident person I know. There have also been life‑threatening situations where God placed the right people at the right moment to stop something from happening. Some people might call that luck, but I call it Divine Protection.
Okay, we’ve made it essentially to the end. One last question before you go. What is the story you hope people tell about you when you’re gone?
That I was honest, smart, and someone who followed through on what he dreamed of as a kid. I want people to remember that I became exactly who I said I wanted to be.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/donnechtman
Image Credits
Todd Nechtman, Sonia Nechtman, The Pixel Plug
