Thank You

I woke up this morning and wanted to find a way to “thank you” all of those who have been integral to our business. While reading the news, I came across a great blog post giving thanks. I liked the approach so much that well I wrote a similar post.

Penny and I have a tremendous amount for which we are thankful. Cattlesoft has been our full time business and income since we graduated from Texas A&M University in 1999. Without our team, partners, and technology providers, there would be no way we could develop and market our software to so many people in so many locations.

Our Team

Thank you to Ken Lyon for the over 4 years of helping Cattlesoft customers succeed with their software. Your passion for working with the hard-to-solve problems as well as interest in working with the equipment interfaces is so greatly appreciated. Also, I appreciate having another programmer who can empathize with some of the programming challenges I encounter… and remind me that it was even more challenging when you encountered the same type of problem 30 years ago.

Thank you to Ken’s wife Becky for being supportive of Ken as he is able to enjoy two of his interests, technology and cattle.

Thank you to Nathan Boles. You have been our jack-of-all-trades guy over the last 4+ years. Whether it’s helping with customer service, writing blog posts, or just sharing your experience and wisdom – I know you will be the one to help calm the choppy waters.

Thank you to Nathan’s wife Phyllis and her support of Nathan as he works in the house. Also thank you for all the wonderful crafts you make for our children, Lane and Paige.

Thank you to Jane Miller, my mother, for handling the customer service and fulfillment for the e-commerce stores. It takes a special type of person who has the diligence to make sure that we aren’t submitting an order for 3,000 tags with a typo.

Thank you to Paula Mariott, Penny’s mother, for always having a smile when Penny hands you a stack of 100 invoices to reconcile. Your accounting help saves us a tremendous amount of time.

Our Customers

Thank you to the 8,500+ cattle ranchers and horse owners in 71 countries who have purchased a Cattlesoft product over the last 12 years.

Thank you to our special customers who are always the first to jump into our new products, offer great feedback, and exercise patience as we work through the sharp edges.

Industry Partners

Thank you to Brandon and Cliff at Tru-Test who provide the weigh scales for our CattleScales.com store.

Thank you to Brandon, Kristi, and Donna at Allflex who help us keep up with the cattle tags and EID readers for our CattleTags.com store. Also thank you to J who is our go-to guy for EID reader support.

Thank you to Stacy at American Hereford Association.

Thank you to Robert at the American International Charolais Association.

Thank you to Jim at GPS Beef for your help with the Brangus, Braunvieh, and Texas Longhorn associations.

Thank you to Chris at American Brahman Breeders Association.

Thank you to Tommy at Beefmaster Breeders United.

Thank you to Lou Ann at the American Angus Association.

Thank you to Steve at the American Simmental Association.

Thank you to Mary at the North American Limousin Foundation.

Thank you to Tim and Stacy at the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers for publishing a quality magazine, hosting a good tradeshow, and of course looking out for the interest of Texas cattle raisers.

Thank you to Si, Kelly, and Jo Ann at Texas Farm Bureau also for publishing a great magazine, hosting a good tradeshow, and looking out for the interest of Texas farmers and ranchers.

Technology Providers

Thank you to Liquid Web for hosting all of our marketing websites

Thank you to Rails Machine for hosting our web applications and making sure everything stays running 24/7

Thank you to Google Apps for hosting our Email and saving me the time managing an email server

Thank you to GoToMeeting for making it easy for us to be able to teach ranchers about our software no matter where their ranch is.

Thank you to Ring Central for ensuring that a customer is routed to the right person, no matter which of the 5 toll free numbers the customer calls.

Thank you to Big Commerce for writing the E-commerce software so that I don’t have to.

Thank you to 37 Signals for the Campfire group chat that helps 4 people in 3 locations keep in-the-loop with 3 software programs and 2 e-commerce stores. Also a big thanks for your Ruby on Rails framework.

Thank you to Microsoft Access team for making Microsoft Access, an incredible software program that has powered CattleMax since 1999.

Thank you to Thoughtbot for making a great error notification service to help us have a more stable software.

Again, Thank You

Thank you to everyone mentioned above. I also apologize for those not on the list that should be… please know that we appreciate all of the support and that this post is far more spontaneous than it appears to be.