In our new series, the hardest lesson I’ve ever learned, we’ll be profiling female business owners on how they have dealt with unexpected business challenges. First up, we talk to Natalie Lowe, co-founder of Green Doctors, who suddenly became the managing director of the company when her business partner – and life partner – Dr Mark Hotu died, leaving behind Natalie and their two children… plus a business that needed to keep going.
When you are a business owner of a relatively new business, there are good years and bad years. But you’d need an entirely different word to describe the year that Natalie Lowe, co-founder of Green Doctors has had.
The business idea began after Natalie and her life partner, the late Dr Mark Hotu, were inspired to set up a mobile doctor service after Mark’s work for a similar business in Melbourne. They knew how helpful the business model was for patients in Australia and saw a gap in the market in Aotearoa. Around this time, Mark was diagnosed with cancer, and their business goals took on another turn.
‘There was nothing in place… I was like, ‘What are the passwords? What are the bank accounts?”
From 2018 onwards, they set up Green Doctors, which was at the time the first physical medicinal cannabis office in Aotearoa (Kelly wrote about her appointment with Mark here). Then Covid-19 hit, and the business had to take another sharp left-turn. The arrival of the pandemic also took a huge toll on Mark, Natalie and their two children, as Mark’s weakened immunity from the cancer meant that the risk of catching Covid was heightened. “It was very isolating,” Natalie says.
During this time, the business was booming – both for online consultations and then back in person – and the team were about to move into a larger clinic to keep up with a growing customer base. And then, Mark unexpectedly died in January 2023, due to complications from his cancer.
“He never thought he was going to die,” Natalie says. “There was nothing in place… I was like, ‘What are the passwords? What are the bank accounts? What is going on?’ There were a lot of things that had to happen, quickly.”
At this point in her chat with Capsule, Natalie starts crying but when asked if she needs to take a moment, she answers quickly, “No, I just have to keep going.” That’s clearly been something of a motto during the past almost 18 months, where she has been running on survival mode.
It has been the most trial-by-fire situation you can imagine – as a partner, as a co-parent, and as a business owner. She had to become a solo parent and the managing director, overnight.
“I was running the business blind for a while… and it almost broke me,” Natalie says. She’s not sure how she’s made it through the past year, she admits. “Sometimes I wish I had a clone of myself, but females are amazing. We always seem to just sort it out.”
Plus, as she points out, there was simply no choice. “It was our source of income. It was all just about survival.”
That has been her hardest lesson: what happens when you are suddenly the only one in charge, both at home and in the office, and have to keep a business thriving the whole time?
When Mark was diagnosed, Natalie said it was never a conversation about whether they would shut the business. He pulled back from one-on-one consults, and they hired more doctors to cover the ever-growing client list. Mark was keen to keep his diagnosis quiet, partly, Natalie says, because so many of the patients they were seeing had their own pain and trauma they were working through.
“We always want to give our patients the best possible customer service; some of them are very sick, whether it’s chronic pain or mental illness,” she says. “Quite often, when they come to us it’s the last resort. They have tried everything else.”
Medicinal Cannabis in Aotearoa
Even without the devastating loss of Mark as a life partner and co-founder to contend with, working in medicinal cannabis here is a hard business. “New Zealand is a lot further behind than anywhere overseas, in terms of access to more products,” Natalie says. In Australia, she points out, they have over a thousand medicinal cannabis products, whereas in NZ, she jokes they were excited when there were enough to fill the second side of an A4 piece of paper.
The referendum to legalise cannabis in Aotearoa may have failed, but it did stir up a lot of conversation and awareness about the possible benefits and treatments that could be available to people.
On top of that, the industry is very tightly regulated in Aotearoa, and there’s the ongoing issues of running a business during a cost-of-living crisis. “Our lease goes up, our electricity goes up, everything goes up; staff costs go up because they need to pay for things, and then patients have an expectation that their costs should be going down,” she says. “It’s a real juggle.”
But the feedback they get from patients, who have had their sometimes life-limiting chronic pain or illness relieved, makes it worth it. Particularly with having a loved one who battled cancer, Natalie is well-aware of how all-consuming the symptoms of illness can be, and being able to provide relief for those in pain is very affirming. “We celebrate that… improving someone’s quality of life is why we go in every day.”
She also credits her and Mark’s two children for being such a source of strength during the past 18 months and the Green Doctors team and suppliers for being so understanding. “I only cried once in front of my staff; it’s really important for them to know that I’m strong, that they have someone they can trust,” she says. “And every one of them have their own story; anyone who works for me has a heck of a lot of empathy.”
If the first year since Mark’s death was about survival, then this second year has been about starting to process the actual grief from his loss. “This year is tougher; the emotion has kicked in,” Natalie says.
But, as she said earlier, she just has to keep going. “I don’t have investors, I don’t have shareholders. It’s just me,” she says. “But we’ve got through, the business is doing well. So, I must be doing something right!”
