Why We Took on the U.S. Market on Kickstarter, and What Comes Next

Miaomada, a small company in Itabashi Ward, Tokyo, sent the U.S. model of the ALENNE Protein Dispenser to Kickstarter in the U.S. in May 2026. Could a household measuring tool born in Japan reach homes overseas too? As the first step toward answering that, we chose Kickstarter.

On this page I want to set down, as plainly as I can, why we chose Kickstarter for that first step into the U.S. market, what the attempt showed us, and where we’re headed next. For the company’s broader thinking and how it came together, I’ve written that up in Founder Keiichiro Honda’s Vision: The Kind of Company Miaomada Is Building and Who Is Miaomada? The Story Behind the Name, and Why a Small Workshop in Tokyo Is Going Global. Reading those alongside this should fill in the background.

Why Crowdfunding

There’s a reason we chose Kickstarter for our first step into the U.S.

Miaomada’s protein dispenser first reached the world through the Japanese crowdfunding platform Makuake. Across two projects, many people backed us, and we refined the product while hearing directly from them: “this is the kind of tool I wanted.” I’ve written about that in detail in Inside Two Successful Makuake Crowdfunding Campaigns.

Crowdfunding isn’t just a place to sell things. It’s where a product the world doesn’t know yet first meets the people who’ll find it interesting. You can convey the maker’s thinking directly, and the reaction of the people who back you comes straight back to you. For a small, little-known company like us putting a new product to the world, it was a good fit.

Because we got that response in Japan, we wanted to test the same approach in the U.S. The culture of drinking protein at home is most deeply rooted there, and we saw it as a market well matched to our theme of making household powders easier to handle.

We Didn’t Just Export the Japanese Product As-Is

In taking on the U.S., we didn’t take the approach of simply putting the product we sell in Japan into English and shipping it.

We switched the materials to grades compliant with the FDA (the U.S. Food and Drug Administration), passed SGS safety testing, and prepared a new English manual and packaging. We also rebuilt the spec to meet U.S. standards. Rather than attaching English instructions to a product made for Japan, we sent it out as a model whose supply chain we rebuilt from scratch for the U.S. market.

It’s a route that takes more effort and more cost. But if you’re serious about delivering to homes overseas, properly rebuilding it for that market is the right way to do it.

What the Attempt Showed Us

To be honest, the launch on Kickstarter didn’t spread as far as we’d pictured. That a track record in Japan doesn’t automatically carry overseas, and how hard it is to convey this product’s value to U.S. households, were things we took in as real numbers on the ground.

Still, the attempt left us with a real sense of what the U.S. market responds to and what you have to say to get through, the kind of read you can’t get from desk research. It came from standing in the market ourselves and putting our value to the test in our own words. Without trying, we wouldn’t have had that learning.

What Miaomada values is learning from failure and moving flexibly with the environment. Not looking away from what didn’t work, but thinking about how to put it to use next. I take this attempt as one of those.

The Next Move

We haven’t given up on the U.S. market. We’re changing how we deliver.

Building on what we learned from a single all-in crowdfunding push, we’re going to face the U.S. in a more settled way from here. We’re currently developing a lighter, lower-cost next dispenser, and an electric dispenser that measures the dose for you. We want to bring the product back to U.S. households in a price and form that’s easier to pick up.

The thinking on how we proceed hasn’t changed. Rather than spreading everywhere at once, we start in the U.S. and extend the range we can sell in ourselves, one step at a time. A small company from Itabashi Ward, facing an overseas market with its own hands. The accumulation of that experience itself, I believe, will become Miaomada’s asset going forward.

In Closing

Take on a new market and things won’t always go as you hoped. Even so, holding onto the root idea that we make it ourselves and sell it ourselves, we intend to keep moving forward, repeating the cycle of attempt and learning.

A household protein dispenser born in Itabashi, used as a matter of course in homes overseas one day. We’re aiming for that picture, and we’ll keep moving toward it one step at a time.

The ALENNE Protein Dispenser

The ALENNE Protein Dispenser is Miaomada’s flagship product: pour straight from the bag into the hopper, slide the lever to measure a set dose, and keep it on the counter as part of your daily routine.