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I was the kid looking for cattle in the IWANNA, and later I was the person buying cattle I shouldn’t have bought and getting scammed. I spent years trying to protect other people from scammers and educate people about cattle, while still learning plenty myself. Now I’m building HoofnHorn, an online marketplace for heritage livestock, with my business partner, Jason. Much of what I want us to do comes from those experiences and what I wish had been available when I was buying and selling cattle.
When I talk about HoofnHorn, I hope you understand why I care so much. I want to make buying and selling livestock easier and help solve problems I’ve dealt with myself. I know how frustrating it is to look for cattle when listings are scattered everywhere, or to try to decide when you can’t find the information you need. I’ve also been the breeder trying to put together a good listing and get my animals in front of the right buyers.
And I know what it feels like to be excited about buying an animal and find out you trusted the wrong person. I’ve spent more hours than I can count looking through listings and profiles, trying to help other people avoid that experience. When I have an opinion about something we need on HoofnHorn, there’s usually a reason behind it and sometimes an expensive lesson. I’d like to save other people some of that trouble.
Of course HoofnHorn is a business, but my reason for building it goes beyond making money. These are problems that have frustrated me for years, and I want to do something about them. I keep thinking about what would have helped me as a buyer, what would make my job easier as a breeder, and how we can make those things work together in one place.
For a long time, I had ideas about how to improve things, but I didn’t have the technical skills to build what I had in mind. Jason handles the software development, and I bring my experience with cattle, livestock sales and marketing. We come from different backgrounds, which has helped as we work through what buyers and breeders need and how the platform should work.
Some ideas are things we can work on now, and some are a “that can be phase whatever down the road” conversation. We have plenty to finish first, and I know we won’t fix every problem at once. But it’s exciting to have somewhere to go with these ideas and see them becoming something people can use.
That’s why HoofnHorn means so much to me. I get to use what I’ve learned, including my own mistakes, to help build something I hope will make your life a little easier. I’m still learning myself plenty, but I feel like I have something useful to contribute. It feels good to be working toward that and finally let myself dream about more than the present.
