Green Nursery Roots & Progression

I want to tell you a little story.

The other day we sent a little Happy New Year’s note. Towards the end I mentioned you guys being the best group of customers. That wasn’t just an off-the-cuff remark, it was a heartfelt remark as a customer service trauma survivor. :)

Let me share for a second how we got started, so you know the roots of where you shop.

Back in 2007 (18 years ago, wtf), WE (my wife/partner), had the idea of starting a little store after our first was born. I was dead set on having a cool herb shop in town, like, regular herbs at that time (bulk ginseng, calendula, calamus root, etc). So that’s what we did and it was slow going, like really slow going. After a while I turned to my partner for ideas. Being the infinite source of input that she is, she suggested adding natural baby products to the store. Why? Well, this was a mostly unfulfilled niche in our little hippie town of Bloomington, IN. Also, it aligned with our personal needs at the time, trying to raise our son with a bit of an eco-friendly approach. So we did that. Then we went online somewhere in that first year. Gradually it became a lot less slow going. Now, what had started as 10% baby products quickly ballooned to nearly 100% of our inventory. (Promise I’m gonna get back to why you guys are great by the end of this 😉)

So long story short, we ended up in a strange universe of filling an online niche of modern reusable diapers, and fairly quickly became one of the top stores to find those products online. However, the margins were super thin, and we were just a mere retailer (selling other people’s ideas) for a selection of the best brands. On the bright side ☀, we were in their list of top 3 retailers in most cases. This peaking period went on for several years from, say, 2012–2019. We were busy, super busy at times, but never really making any money. The customers were 95% stressed-out moms and 5% stressed-out dads. All understandable, given the market we were in. Everyone was trying to rebuild after the 2008 bullshit with the financial crisis circus. On top of this, our customers in particular were trying to build families in that climate, and make every penny count. But, being on the receiving end of that was extremely tough at times. I found myself doing 95% of the customer support queries and still do, to be honest. In those days, though, I often found myself in extremely long dialogs of trying to help customers decide on the perfect solution for their baby, and many times these support tickets went on and on and on and on and people would divulge their whole marital situations, etc.

By 2018, there was no doubt that this was fizzling out completely and we found ourselves looking for other markets to pivot to. We had joked early on that the name Green Nursery would be a great name for a cannabis shop, but it originally spawned from a night of brainstorming to represent the 'green' trend at the time and the word nursery referring to a baby nursery. If you think we’re uncool now, and want to turn your back, I don’t blame you. I’m embarrassed of it myself tbh. :)

The silver lining came when we luckily fell into the evolving hemp & cbd market, and the name Green Nursery just worked. It worked better. The product line was back to my original "herbal" intention, albeit extremely focused on one plant, though a gloriously important and magical plant. So we continued this pivot to the point of 100% cannabis-related products by the beginning of 2020. Yes, the pandemic sucked, but for our online shop it didn’t really negatively affect things, to our surprise. Though, during this time, we did decide to permanently close the doors of our little brick-and-mortar store. It wasn’t an easy decision. We did so quietly. Just kind of locked up and didn’t look back.

Moral of this long and rambling recap of our roots-to-now story, and what it all boils down to, is the customers. As cheesy or cringey as that might sound, we’re literally nothing without you guys. And though I still sometimes brace myself opening up support tickets for the day, 99% of you guys are so cool and understanding of any situations that arise and require assistance. I/We really appreciate that. We’re a very small team, literally just a few of us. My life partner has her own thing going these days as the music director of our local community radio station here, which is a perfect fit. She leaves this particular business to me now, but is always open as a sounding board.

Thanks again for being awesome customers and hope you have a fruitful 2025. ✌️

Scott Noroozi
co-founder/ceo