The first 100 orders for the Gaucho BBQ Grill Apron came in across November 2022 to February 2023. We read every one. Not the order data — the messages. The delivery notes. The reviews that came back. A hundred orders is a small enough number to treat individually and a large enough number to start seeing patterns.
Who Was Buying
73% of the first 100 orders were gifts. The remaining 27% were self-purchase. The gifted orders clustered around Father’s Day, Christmas, and birthdays — which told us that the Gaucho had immediately found its way into a specific gift context. People were buying it for someone they thought would use it seriously. That’s the right customer.
What Customers Said
The most common feedback fell into three categories:
- Heavier than expected — and that was a positive surprise. Weight in a garment signals material quality. Customers felt it before they used it.
- Quality exceeded expectation for the price. Several customers specifically said £75 felt like a fair price once they had the product in hand — which validated the launch price decision.
- Multiple customers said they’d been looking for a “proper” BBQ apron for years. The word “proper” came up enough times to be significant.
The most common question from new customers: will you make a personalised version? We were already working on it. The Couples’ Aprons and personalised Gaucho followed later in 2023.
The Email We Kept
One customer email from that first winter has stayed with us. Short message, no elaboration: “first BBQ apron I’ve owned that I’ll still be using in 10 years.” That’s the brief, written back to us by someone who’d just opened the box. Buy once. That’s the whole point.
