Was 7 Months Too Long to Launch Naked Fries on Shopify?

Was 7 Months Too Long to Launch Naked Fries on Shopify?

Written by Lauren Grazioso, Co-Founder of Naked Fries. Originally published on The Naked Fries Substack.

Naked Fries launched March 29, 2026 on Shopify but HOW did we get there?? Well… let’s backtrack 7 months to August 2025.

The billion dollar idea was there so what came next? LLC formation, food sanitation manager training, City of Chicago foodservice sanitation manager certification, business insurance, FDA registration, finalize product recipe, test avocado oils, potatoes, sea salt ratios, hire package designer, define logos, colors, fonts, send packaging to print… I can keep going but for sake of this post I will stop there.

Instead let’s break it into the phases we followed (Important to note - some of these phases were run simultaneously!):

  1. Licenses and Contracts
  2. Define Product Offering
  3. Branding and Packaging
  4. Shared Kitchen Operations
  5. Shipping and Delivery
  6. Marketing
  7. Accounting
  8. DTC Launch

Phase 1 - Licenses and Contracts

Non-arguably the most boring part and maybe arguably the most frustrating (depending what city/state you live in)

After working with ChatGPT, we came up with the list above that includes all the licenses/certifications we needed to build Naked Fries. The most important one is the Shared Kitchen User License which gets you access to a commercial kitchen and is needed to legally sell your food product in Illinois. I will spare you the details of each line and focus on the key takeaways from this phase:

  • The Shared Kitchen User License delayed us about a month. For legal reasons, I will keep the delay cause at a high level… so let’s just say it had to do with the City of Chicago.
    • Fun fact! On my way to the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) I got hit by a car while on a Divvy bike. Lived to tell the story and made it to the CDPH, but ultimately had to go back to the CDPH…IYKYK.
  • Make sure you actually study for the Food Sanitation Manager Training test… I failed the first time and you only get two attempts. Imagine the delay that would have caused…

Phase 2 - Define Product Offering

This was a fun yet annoying yet SUPER IMPORTANT phase. Yes, we had our general product defined but there was more than just slicing, seasoning, and baking the fries. We had to test the ratio of avocado oil and sea salt, and had to test the preparation methods with different processes. Biggest takeaways:

  • Change one thing at a time. It sounds obvious, but it's easy to get impatient. If you adjust the avocado oil ratio, and sea salt measurement and fry cut in the same batch, you'll never know what actually moved the needle. The fastest way to finalize our product was to slow down and isolate each variable.
  • Don’t assume your home kitchen recipe will translate perfectly to the commercial kitchen. We had a solid (or so we thought) recipe and cooking process before getting access, but commercial ovens, larger batch sizes, and different equipment all impacted the final product. As a result, we had to make several adjustments to both our recipe and cooking process once we started producing in a commercial environment.

Phase 3 - Branding & Packaging

The fun part!! But not without its share of pain points…

We started the branding and packaging process at the same time we started the licenses & contracts phase. My friend had referred us to our package designer who is absolutely incredible. I mean a moment for the packaging???

Lots of lessons learned in this phase so let’s get into them:

  • Start the branding process ASAP. Seeing your brand come to life with the colors, fonts, logos is very exciting and helps keep that momentum going.
  • When placing your first order of packaging, I recommend getting your packaging from U.S. companies as the MOQ is typically lower than abroad and you can sample different size/styles of their bags.
    • Low MOQ is also a plus because after launch, you may notice some changes to the packaging with wording, cook times, callouts, certifications, etc.
  • If you are mentioning a specific brand on your package, make sure you reach out to that brand to get their approval.
  • MOST IMPORTANT LESSON LEARNED - Hire a package compliance consultant. There is so much you can’t say on food packaging that we were not initially aware of. Stay tuned for the post on the Before/After meeting with our package compliance consultant.
  • Non-GMO certifications, Gluten Free, Seed Oil Free, etc. Certifications are expensive. So much so, we held off on pursuing any of these for our launch.

Phase 4 - Shared Kitchen Operations

First time in a commercial kitchen and it showed LOL. The way we approached this was by completing an initial round of testing using the same equipment we had in our home kitchen. From there, we made a list of everything we needed to purchase from a restaurant supply store (think Restaurant Depot or WebstaurantStore) before our next round. Obviously with a commercial kitchen, we were producing at a greater scale so needed to source our ingredients at that same level.

This was pretty straightforward with most businesses having wholesale pricing.

Phase 5 - Shipping and Delivery

My advice if you plan to ship frozen? Don’t do it. Kidding… kinda. Let me share some of my findings to help with the burn:

  • Local delivery is very time consuming if you are doing it yourself.
  • If you are shipping frozen product, have a minimum quantity that needs to be ordered.
  • Cold Shipping companies are crazy expensive especially when you are just starting out and don’t have that high of demand.
  • Test, test, test the length your product can last in transit with dry ice.

Phase 6 - Marketing

Speaking from a pre-launch standpoint, the only items from our Marketing phase we completed and were necessary were 6.1 Create Website and 6.2 Create Naked Fries email. The rest of the items are ongoing and great to reference as we continue to scale. One major takeaway here - GET LOTS OF MERCH! As Sara Blakely once said, “When you can’t afford a billboard, you become your own billboard”.

Phase 7 - Accounting

Boring but a necessary evil… The cost model was needed to set out price for our Shopify launch. Make sure to factor in EVERYTHING including shipping materials, labor costs, shared kitchen bills, local delivery costs, etc.

Phase 8 - DTC Launch

Congrats you made it to the end of this post and the Launch phase!! Fun fact here we never actually did the soft launch and just went all in on the public launch. Looking back, I don’t think the soft launch would have been necessary.

The most important lesson we learned throughout the entire process was to set a launch date and make it happen. About five months into building Naked Fries, we circled March 29 on the calendar and committed to it. I truly believe that without having a firm launch date, we would have continued tweaking, testing, and chasing perfection instead of actually launching.

So, after reading about the setbacks, delays, and lessons learned, what do you think?

Was seven months too long?

Want more behind-the-scenes updates? Follow the full Naked Fries journey on Substack.