Why I Built My Own Farm Management Software

It Started With a Spreadsheet

About ten years ago, I started planning everything on Howdy Hills in spreadsheets. Expenses, animal records, breeding dates, egg counts, hay inventory. You name it, it got a column. At first it was fine. One sheet for cattle, one for chickens, one for finances. Simple enough.

Then it wasn't simple. One spreadsheet turned into two, then five, then thirteen tabs deep with formulas referencing other formulas across sheets I'd forgotten I'd built. I'd spend more time maintaining the spreadsheet than actually using the information in it. If I wanted to know what a specific animal had cost me over its lifetime, I'd have to cross-reference three different tabs and hope I hadn't fat-fingered a cell reference somewhere.

But here's the thing. The spreadsheets worked. Sort of. They were ugly and brittle and I was the only person on the planet who understood how they were wired together, but they were mine. They tracked what I actually needed to track, the way I actually thought about it.

Trying What Was Out There

Eventually I figured there had to be something better. So I started looking at farm management software. I tried one platform for a year. It was fine for some things, but it never quite fit the way I managed my operation. The features were there on paper, but the workflows felt like they were designed for someone else. Someone running a much bigger, much more specialized operation than mine.

So I switched to another one the next year. Different interface, same problem. It still felt like I was bending Howdy Hills to fit the software instead of the other way around. And I'm running a mixed operation. Registered Dexter cattle, layers, meat birds, and direct-to-consumer sales. Most of these tools are built for someone who does one thing at scale, not someone who does a lot of things thoughtfully.

Then there were the ones I didn't even bother trying. I'd pull up the pricing page and see numbers that made sense for a 500-head cattle operation but not for someone like me. I'm not going to pay hundreds of dollars a month for software when my whole farm budget is tight. Even if it did everything I wanted (and none of them did), the math just didn't work at my scale.

So I Started Building

I have a bit of a non-traditional background. I studied some computer science in college, I picked up more technical skills during my time in the Army, and I worked at a tech start up for a little bit right when I got off Active Duty. I never set out to be a software developer, but I'd always been the person who could figure out how things do what I needed them to do.

So at some point I just thought, what if I built the thing I actually wanted? Not a theoretical product for a theoretical farmer, but the exact tool I wished existed every time I sat down with those spreadsheets. Something that understood that a small mixed operation needs (or wants if you're a nerd like me. Plenty of folks get around fine without a computer.) to track cattle genetics and egg production and hay purchases and Schedule F expenses all in the same place, without paying a fortune for it.

That's how Howdy Ag started. Not with a business plan or a pitch deck. Just me, frustrated with my options, sitting at my desk and writing the first lines of code.

Then My Friends Wanted It

I wasn't building Howdy Ag for anyone else at first. But farming isn't something you do in isolation. You talk to other farmers. You're at the feed store, you're at the sale barn, you're in breed association groups online. And when people found out I was building my own management tool, they wanted to see it.

The reaction caught me off guard. It wasn't "oh, that's cool." It was "that solves a problem I've been dealing with for years." Turns out I wasn't the only one drowning in spreadsheets. I wasn't the only one who'd tried the big-name software and bounced off. The problems I was solving for myself were the same problems a lot of small farmers were dealing with quietly.

So I started letting friends try it. They'd find bugs, sure, but more importantly they'd say things like "can it do this?" and I'd realize the answer should be yes. Every conversation made it a little better, a little more useful for the kind of farmer who was actually going to use it.

Features Born From Real Moments

A lot of what's in Howdy Ag didn't come from a product roadmap. It came from moments like this one. I was scrolling Facebook one day and saw someone posting a cow for sale. The ad was missing half the information you'd actually want to know. No lineage, no health history, no location, no price, barely a description. Just a photo and "Rehoming". And I thought, wouldn't it be nice if you could just hit a button and generate a sale listing from the records you're already keeping?

Then it clicked. I was already putting all of that information into Howdy Ag. Breed, genetics, registration numbers, health records, the whole picture. The data was right there. All I needed was a button that turned an animal record into a proper, complete listing. No retyping, no forgetting to mention that she's A2/A2 or polled or what her dam's production looked like.

And that led to a bigger realization. Facebook doesn't even let you put prices on livestock posts. Craigslist is a mess. There's no real, dedicated place for small farmers to buy and sell animals with the kind of detail that actually matters. So if Howdy Ag already has all this information, and a marketplace for consumers, why not build a marketplace for farmers right into it? A place where farmers can list animals with complete, accurate records, and where buyers can actually find what they're looking for without scrolling through vague Facebook posts and hoping for the best.

That's how most features in Howdy Ag come to life. Not from brainstorming sessions or competitor analysis. From real moments where I'm doing something on Howdy Hills and think, "this should be easier." And if I'm thinking it, I know other farmers are too.

What I'm Actually Trying to Build

Howdy Ag isn't trying to be everything for everyone. It's built for the small, mixed livestock operation. The kind of farm where you're the owner, the vet tech, the bookkeeper, and the one fixing the fence at 6 AM. The kind of farm where you need your tools to be affordable, practical, and not require a training manual.

I think about the problems that small farmers actually face every day. Things like, what did that animal actually cost me when I factor in feed, vet bills, and hay? Am I making money on my egg sales or just feeling busy? What do I need to hand my CPA at tax time so they don't charge me an extra hour to sort through a folder full of most of my receipts?

Those are the questions I'm building for. Not hypothetical futures or enterprise features. Real, daily, practical problems that nobody else seems to think are worth solving at a price point that makes sense.

And I mean that. Keeping this affordable isn't just a marketing line. It's something I think about constantly because I'm in the same position as the people using it. The free tier is pretty generous, and that's on purpose. The way I see it, I'd be paying to keep this thing running for Howdy Hills anyway. Adding more people to the free tier doesn't cost me much beyond what I'm already spending. So why not let folks use it?

The paid tiers exist because some features actually cost money to run. Things like tools that call on outside application program interfaces to do more advanced analysis and scan receipts, bank integrations, and getting into a lot of animals with potential data storage all have real costs behind them that I have to pass along. But even those tiers are priced for the small farmer, not the enterprise operation. I never want someone to look at the pricing page and feel the way I felt looking at those other platforms.

This Is Just the Beginning

I'm still farming. I'm still using Howdy Ag every day on my own operation, which means every time something annoys me, I fix it. Every time I wish it did something, I add it. That's the advantage of building the tool you actually use. You never run out of motivation to make it better.

I also want to be upfront about something. I'm not a professional developer. I'm a farmer who taught himself to build software, got some help, and is figuring things out. The farm still comes first. Heck, my off farm job comes before this. I have to pay my bills, and farming isn't doing that yet. There will be times, especially during calving season when something I need is broke or stuck, where I can't get back to people as quickly as I'd like. But I'll always do my best. That's the tradeoff of having someone who actually lives this life building your tools. I might be slow to respond sometimes, but I'll never be out of touch with what you actually need. (I've been hitting within 24 hours, which is a stat that would surprise anyone who has ever texted me.)

If any of this sounds familiar (the spreadsheet chaos, the software that doesn't fit, the sticker shock), I built this for you. Or really, I built it for me, and it turns out there are a lot of us.

Howdy Ag is in beta right now, but you can sign up and get your farm on the marketplace, and I'll let you know when my beta testers are done putting it through its paces. (I'm aiming for April). Head over to howdyag.farm and take a look. If you like what I'm building (or just want some extra visibility) make a marketplace profile at howdyag.farm/list-your-farm And if you've got thoughts, ideas, or just want to commiserate about spreadsheets, I'm all ears.