Olivia Abrams | Co-Founder & CEO, TiCK MiTT
Olivia Abrams was seven when Lyme disease left her unable to walk and undiagnosed for months. Years later, the entrepreneurship student turned that lifelong problem into TiCK MiTT, a chemical-free fabric mitt now in 900+ Petco stores. She shares why she waited to launch, why she turned down a Shark Tank deal, and the long-term vision to make bug protection what sun protection became to the last generation.
Olivia Abrams was seven years old when her knee swelled to the size of a balloon, and no one could explain why. After rounds of doctors, X-rays, and specialists, a single offhand comment from her father finally pointed to the culprit: Lyme disease.
That experience, of being sick, dismissed, and undiagnosed, never left her. Years later, as an entrepreneurship student trained to start with problems, she turned the most persistent one of her life into a company. TiCK MiTT is a chemical-free, fabric-based tick removal mitt engineered to protect people and pets before a bite ever happens.
What began as a college project became a brand now carried in over 900 Petco stores nationwide, seen on Shark Tank, and trusted by a growing community of families, pet parents, and medical advocates who understand exactly what's at stake.
The idea for TiCK MiTT came from a personal health scare in your family. Can you walk us through the moment when the problem went from frustrating… to something you felt compelled to solve?
I was seven years old when my knee swelled to the size of a balloon. I couldn't walk. I sat out of PE class. I hopped to the kitchen to get a snack on one leg. We went through rounds of doctor visits, X-rays, specialist appointments, blood tests — everything kept coming back normal. It wasn't until my dad casually mentioned to a doctor that we'd been spending time at our family home in upstate New York that Lyme disease was even considered. That offhand comment is the reason I got diagnosed.
That experience — being sick, not being believed, having to advocate for yourself in a system that wasn't connecting the dots — that never left me. My whole family has had Lyme. We grew up with big dogs that brought ticks into the house constantly. And when I got to college and studied entrepreneurship, I was taught to start with problems, not ideas. Ticks were the most persistent personal problem I had.
The product's origin was almost accidental — my family had always used towels to wipe our dogs down after they would drool, and kept finding weird things on them like burrs, ants, and leaves. That was the seed. I just asked: what if fabric could be engineered to specifically remove ticks? That question became TiCK MiTT.
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