Hillbilly Brand

Hillbilly Brand is a country-lifestyle apparel label built around trucker hats, t-shirts, and casual gear that plays up Southern, outdoorsy identity. Founders Mike Abbaticchio and Shon Lees, working out of Florida, set out to turn a regional attitude into a clothing line with broad appeal, betting that the hillbilly label could be worn as a badge of pride rather than an insult.

The pair entered the Season 2 tank asking for 50,000 dollars in exchange for 25 percent of the company. The negotiation drew interest from multiple sharks, and the offer that came together involved a larger cash figure paired with terms around ownership and a royalty. The founders accepted on air, but the details of what full ownership transfer would mean became a problem once the show ended.

The pitch stood out because the brand was as much about a feeling as a product. Apparel companies are notoriously hard to fund on Shark Tank, so getting sharks to engage at all was a win, and the founders' clear sense of their customer, country buyers who wanted gear that spoke their language, gave the line a defined identity.

The on-air handshake did not close once post-show terms made the ownership picture clearer than the founders wanted, and they chose to keep building the brand themselves. Rather than stall the business, the decision let Abbaticchio and Lees keep control and expand the product range on their own terms while maintaining a relationship with one of the sharks.

As of 2026 Hillbilly Brand is still operating and selling through its official site, hillbillybrand.com. The catalog has grown beyond hats and tees to include womens items and the brand's own line of lemonade-style drinks, showing the founders pushed the label into new categories rather than staying a single-product apparel shop.