Editor’s note: See the complete list of Outdoor Retailer Innovation Award winners here
Steve Abrams first noticed that the microfiber cloths he was using to prevent his Mastiffs’ drool from getting all over his country house in the Hudson Valley and his apartment in New York City also grabbed ticks, the disease-carrying parasitic insects, about 15 years ago.
“But in the back of my head, I thought, ‘There’s a business,’” he said in an interview with The Daily. “Because that’s the way I think, right? This is a business.”
The serial entrepreneur already had his hands full. After recently acquiring Manhattan’s Magnolia Bakery, he was busy expanding it into a wildly successful chain known for its cupcakes and banana pudding.
But in 2018 he decided to pursue the tick idea and started working with a scientist based in Connecticut and a supplier in China to develop prototypes for what would eventually become the Tick Mitt, which won Product of the Year at the Outdoor Retailer Innovation Awards in June.
Abrams’s daughter, Olivia, got involved when she created a business plan for Tick Mitt for her final entrepreneurship class at Lehigh University, from which she graduated in 2021. That same year, Steve sold Magnolia and took time off to relax.
Steve missed working, however. And post-graduation, Olivia wasn’t excited about her finance job, and her entrepreneurial aspirations gnawed at her.
“Growing up at the dinner table, conversations were about international franchising and branding,” she said. “My dad and I always talked about doing something together. I thought it would probably be a restaurant, because my dad and my uncle both work in the restaurant industry.”
Olivia also dreamed of working on a social venture that would benefit people. In late 2022, she left her job and the father-daughter duo officially teamed up and launched Tick Mitt in March 2023. The venture was funded with some of the proceeds from the Magnolia sale and, by using some of their media connections, the duo made it on Good Morning America and The View. The Abrams sold out of their inventory immediately.
In the past 12 months, Tick Mitt has made approximately $450,000 in sales and is profitable, Olivia said. The product is sold in the U.S., Canada, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and South Korea.
How Tick Mitt Works
The concept is simple. After spending time outdoors, users pat down pets and humans with the mitt to remove any loose ticks. The mitt is washable and reusable.
Steve said he spends about 10 hours per week on Tick Mitt, and for Olivia it’s a full-time pursuit. She’s hired one marketing coordinator and an intern, and spends most of her time in the city while her dad holds down the fort upstate.
“People ask me what I do here and basically I do legal, finance, logistics and pack mule jobs,” Steve joked.
Olivia oversees marketing and strategy, sending her dad to-do lists every day and keeping everyone organized.
Expanding Beyond Pets
The strategy initially focused on pets, hiring influencers to showcase the mitt on social media and appearing at trade shows such as Pet Expo in Orlando.
“We’ve branched out more into the different areas of outdoor like gardening, camping, hiking, and of course all the outdoors activities that kids do, like Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, soccer, things like that,” Olivia said.
Social media, email marketing and PR are key to getting the word out, and working with non-profits involved with Lyme disease and tick-borne disease prevention has also helped them both connect to the community and contribute to it. Both Steve and Olivia serve on the board of the nonprofit Project Lyme. And they do that authentically – both Steve and Olivia have been bitten by ticks, and Olivia still experiences knee pain from contracting Lyme disease from a bite as a child. Many of her family and friends have had to deal with tick bites and tick-borne diseases, which are common in upstate New York.
Winning the Product of the Year award at Outdoor Retailer was exciting, Steve said, but the feedback they gather at trade shows is the most valuable aspect of going to them. They’ve realized that while ticks are particularly bad in upstate New York and Connecticut, they’re really an international problem, and one that has even prevented people from enjoying the outdoors because they’ve contracted Lyme or other illnesses from tick bites.
“This product gives people their freedom back,” Steve said.
So far, most of their sales are direct-to-consumer and on Amazon, and they’re growing their wholesale business with stores like Chewy and Orvis. Olivia sees Tick Mitt evolving into “a completely non-toxic tick removal company,” she said.
“So that includes removing ticks after they’ve embedded into the skin in a better, more effective way than what’s currently on the market, and expanding into other areas, potentially livestock.”
Steve said he will likely double down on what he’s invested so far into the company, simply because the demand is there, and they want to meet it. And he wouldn’t have it any other way.
“To be in business with my daughter? I’d crawl through glass to have this experience,” Steve said. “It’s amazing to watch her flourish, and 90% of where we are is due to her.”
Olivia said the experience so far has been better than she could have imagined.
“Having basically a final product given to me, and being told to run with it, and I knew that it would help people? It was like a dream come true,” Olivia said.
Kate Robertson can be reached at kate.robertson@emeraldx.com.
