Scalable commerce in regulated health

How Inheaden rebuilt Grüne Brise’s medical-cannabis platform for growth

When Grüne Brise first reached out to us, they weren’t asking for “a new shop.”
They were asking how to keep up with demand in one of the most regulated markets in Europe.

The team had already proved there was a need: patients were coming in, pharmacies were shipping orders, and the business model worked. But behind the scenes, the setup looked like many early-stage products: a WordPress MVP that had been stretched well beyond what it was originally meant to do, plus a growing pile of spreadsheets and manual processes.

Logins were unreliable. Performance dipped whenever traffic spiked. Orders had to be checked and rechecked because there was no single source of truth for stock or prescriptions. And because two very different groups used the system—patients and pharmacies—small breaks in the flow created big headaches for everyone.

Our job at Inheaden was to turn that fragile MVP into an always-on platform that could grow with Grüne Brise’s ambitions.

From “Can we fix this?” to “What do we actually need?”

The first thing our team agreed on together was that this wasn’t about “making WordPress faster.” It was about understanding the entire patient-to-pharmacy journey and designing a system that could support it end-to-end.

We kicked off with a discovery phase: a series of workshops where we brought Grüne Brise founders product and operations teams into the same room and carefully unpacked every step of the process.

One of the first artifacts from those workshops was a detailed service blueprint: starting from Visiting the Pharmacy and ending at Delivery, Tracking, and Receiving. For each phase, we captured what users were doing, what they were thinking, and, maybe most importantly, how they were feeling.

This blueprint made a few things obvious:

• Patients were unsure if they had chosen the right product for their prescription.
• Pharmacies were constantly context-switching between tools to keep orders, inventory, and communication in sync.
• Internal teams had to manually fix issues the platform should have handled by itself.

We then looked at the same problem from another angle, using a value proposition canvas for both sides of the marketplace. On one side: the “customer jobs,” pains, and gains for patients and pharmacies. On the other: the products, pain relievers, and gain creators that Grüne Brise wanted to offer.

By the end of the discovery phase, there was a clear shared goal:

Build a single, secure platform that connects patients and pharmacies, streamlined to avoid confusion, and can safely scale with demand.

The architecture: two faces, one backbone

With our North Star in place, the technical and design decisions became much easier.

Our experts at Inheaden chose an architecture with two separate frontends and a single, hardened API at the core. Patients see a fast, consumer-grade webshop, with a straightforward way to upload prescriptions, browse products, and place orders. Pharmacies and internal staff use an admin portal designed around their day-to-day workflows instead of around “what the old system used to look like.”

Both sides talk to the same API. This means one place for products, one place for orders, and one place for stock and prescription data. It also means Grüne Brise can add future channels—a mobile app, a new tool for pharmacists, or integrations with other systems—without having to rebuild from scratch.

On top of this, we opted for an event-driven order flow. Instead of pushing everything through a single synchronous path, orders are accepted quickly and then processed asynchronously in the background. For Grüne Brise, this translates to a storefront that stays responsive even during busy periods, while the system calmly works through the heavy lifting behind the scenes.

Finally, we linked the platform to HubSpot as an ERP and analytics layer. Instead of data disappearing into individual tools, Grüne Brise now has a central place for live dashboards and reporting - finance, ops, and growth teams are all looking at the same numbers.

What the platform can do today

Once the backbone was in place, our team layered on the capabilities that matter in a healthcare-commerce context.

Commerce & fulfilment

• Shipping via DHL Go! Express for reliable, fast delivery
• Support for “on request” flows, where patients are routed to a form or additional contact if the product requires extra clarification
• Ability to ingest orders from third-party systems into the same backbone
• Order-now-pay-later options to provide more flexible payment journeys

Product & content management

• A flexible, no-code way to adjust product detail pages: layout, visuals, and copy
• Full control over livestock overviews and product placement in the shop
• Smarter product display logic, helping patients find the right item faster based on attributes like indication or price range

Prescription & pricing logic

• A prescription reader: patients can upload their prescription, and the system suggests the correct product
• Support for electronic prescriptions with digital signatures
• GKV-aware pricing, with different flows for privately and statutorily insured patients

Pharmacy-friendly backend

• A user-friendly backend for pharmacies, including bulk editing, clear notifications, and role-based permissions
• Interfaces tailored to how staff actually work, whether that’s on desktop in the back office or on tablet at the counter

Reporting & stakeholder views

• Automated reporting that includes everything from order volumes to gram information
• Role-specific dashboards so each team sees the metrics that matter most to them

Built for health-grade security and future growth

Because Grüne Brise operates in a regulated space, security wasn’t a “phase two” topic; it was factored into every decision.

Sensitive data is encrypted end-to-end. The platform is hosted on Scaleway, which is certified to handle health information. An independent penetration test reported no findings, giving Grüne Brise and their partners confidence that the system meets the standards they need.

At the same time, the architecture is ready for growth. New pharmacies can be added without disrupting existing ones. New product categories can be introduced without compromising what’s already running. And because the API is the single source of truth, new tools or channels can be plugged in as the business evolves.

From fragile prototype to always-on platform

The contrast between the old and new setups is stark.

Where WordPress struggled with spikes in traffic, the new platform calmly handles thousands of orders per month. Where orders once moved through a patchwork of emails and spreadsheets, they now pass through a clear, trackable flow. The migration itself was handled without downtime: patients and pharmacies moved to the new system without a “dark period” where orders had to be paused.

For patients, the change feels like this: fewer surprises, fewer questions, and more clarity about what they ordered and when it will arrive.

For pharmacies, it’s about getting out of spreadsheet chaos and into a backend that reflects how they actually work.

For Grüne Brise as a company, it means their tech finally matches their ambitions. They can focus on expanding their reach and offerings instead of wondering whether the platform will survive the next growth phase.

How we like to work at Inheaden

This project is a good example of our approach at Inheaden:

Our team starts with discovery, not with a quote. Understanding user journeys, regulatory constraints, and internal operations always pays for itself later in the build.

We then use design thinking, like the journey map and value-prop canvas, not as pretty slides but as input for technical decisions. If any step in the journey is painful, it should have a counterpart in the architecture or the feature set that fixes it.

And finally, we design & develop with scalability and compliance in mind from day one. In regulated markets, “we’ll bolt security on later” is not an option.

🔎 To know more about discovery, read here: What Is a Product Discovery Workshop (and Why It Can Save Your Next Release)

Interested in a similar project?

If you’re in a regulated space—whether that’s healthcare, finance, or government services—and your current platform feels more like a bottleneck than a foundation, we’d be happy to explore what a similar approach could do for you.

At Inheaden, we design and build modern, scalable platforms that are shaped by real user journeys and ready for growth.

You can find us at Inheaden or reach out to us directly on our contact us page to discuss whether a discovery workshop and a new architecture are the right next step for your product.