Here is Nate Morrison's impressive story, as posted on Facebook.
A look back on the last 10 years of The Breeder's Connection:
I started The Breeder's Connection in January, 2004. At the age of 24 in a tiny one room apartment in Tulsa, OK while attending Bible School at Rhema Bible Training Center. I moved to Tulsa in the summer of 2003 to attend school that fall. I was living in a tiny apartment, in the middle of the city, with no job, no source of income, just my faith in God and His calling on my life. Before I moved to Tulsa, I dabbled around with website design, building a website for our rodeo ministry, Bull Riders For Christ, and a website for Morrison Bucking Horses. A friend, Randy Shippy, kept hounding me to build him a website for his rodeo bulls. It wasn't until I moved to Tulsa, with no income (just the support from church and family from back home), that I finally took him up on that offer. I told him that I would build him a website for $300.00 w/ a $100.00 discount if he recommended another one of his bull friends to me to build them a site. He took me up on that offer and Brady Roach with Rafter 7r Genetics gave me a call wanting me to build a website for his program like Shippy's. I gave him the same price quote I gave Randy, and in the summer of 2003 Born to Buck Web Design was created building websites at $200.00 a pop.
It was then that I created an online directory, to link all of the websites I built, to one central location and named it The Breeder's Connection. Around that same time Rodeo Stock Registry with a website named Buckers, with an established message board where all of the bucking bull breeders would hang out online, sold to the PBR and RSR became the ABBI. Along with that sale, Buckers.com was closing along with their message board. At that time, I put a message board on The Breeder's Connection, and thankfully everyone from Buckers came over and made that their board, which kept growing in popularity. The board is nothing like it used to be, mainly do to the change in social media and facebook, but it created the online community that The Breeder's Connection is today.
As the web sites kept growing in the directory, and the popularity of the message board kept growing into the winter of 2003, more and more were finding this new way of selling and buying rodeo cattle online through these websites. I give the Holy Spirit the credit for giving me the idea of starting a weekly auction on The Breeder's Connection as a way for my website costumers to sell their cattle.
In January 2004, I held my first auction consisting of 1 bull, 1 cow, and 1 lot of semen with the bidding open for one week.
Here is the first bull to ever sell on TBC: http://www.thebreedersconnection.com/lot2.html
I continued with 3 lots a week until it started to grow in popularity and I needed to increase my weekly numbers to keep up with the demand, which eventually grew into two sales a week.
First two bulls to sell for over $5,000.00:
http://www.thebreedersconnection.com/lot64.html
http://www.thebreedersconnection.com/lot70.html
First bull ever to sell with a video: http://www.thebreedersconnection.com/lot100.html
First Bull to ever sell for over $10,000.00:
http://www.thebreedersconnection.com/wcslingerson.html
This bull went on to be B51 Fist Full of Dollars, a PBR Finals Short-go Bull
First Bull to ever sell for over $20,000.00:
http://www.thebreedersconnection.com/lot270.html
This was in 2005, with just one year of The Breeder's Connection being online. Lot #100 was still the first lot ever use a video of the bull bucking. If I was to choose one moment on The Breeder's Connection that was the biggest game changer, it was this lot #270. For a bull to sell online for $20,500.00 without a video, caught everyone's attention.
Two weeks later, the second lot with a video was consigned and sold for $40,500.00 on March 10th, 2005.
http://www.thebreedersconnection.com/lot279.html
SEE THE VIDEO HERE:
http://www.thebreedersconnection.com/PorterBull.WMV
After this, video consignments became more popular, and The Breeder's Connection exploded into being what it has become today.
Approximate Total Amount Sold on The Breeder's Connection in 10 years of online sales: $15,000,000.00
I give all the glory to God for giving me this business and for continually giving me wisdom and direction so I can continue this great adventure I have been on. I have had my ups and downs with the business, have made my mistakes, and learned as I have gone. Thank you to all bidders, consignors, buyers, and EVERYONE that has been a part The Breeder's Connection Community. The Breeder's Connection wouldn't and couldn't exist without you.