Two weeks before the Gaucho BBQ Grill Apron launched in November 2022. The product was right. The photography was done. What remained was everything else.
What We Finished
The website was completed and tested. The product photography was placed and the copy was written — concrete, specific, no filler. The press release was drafted. And the packaging question, which we’d parked during development, needed an answer.
The UGLY box decision was made in October 2022. We didn’t want to commission expensive bespoke packaging for a small first production run of an unproven product. Instead we sourced repurposed boxes — functional, branded simply, not wasteful. The UGLY box programme became part of how we think about sustainability at Bison Hill: use what exists rather than commissioning what looks impressive.
What We Postponed
Stockist conversations. We’d had approaches and we’d had interest. We postponed all of them deliberately — we wanted direct sales data before we brought a retail margin into the equation. Selling direct first meant we’d understand our customer, our returns rate, and our real unit economics before committing inventory to a third party. Those conversations happened later, with better information behind them.
The One Thing We Didn’t Change
Two weeks out, we had a brief conversation about price. The Gaucho was launching at £75. The question was whether £75 was too high for a brand that hadn’t sold a unit yet.
We didn’t change it. The price is honest for what the product is — eleven months of development, UK-made, small batch, buy-once quality. Discounting on launch would have signalled that we weren’t confident in it. We were confident in it.
The Gaucho still costs £75 today.
