EZ Sign Story #9: Japan's Viral Boom vs. U.S. Hurdles – What We Learned Going Global

Thanks to the incredible support we received through our crowdfunding campaigns in both Japan and the U.S., we knew we were onto something with EZ Sign—a completely new concept for E-paper and NFC digital signage.

The next step was to take EZ Sign into the mainstream market through Amazon and our own e-commerce sites in Japan and the U.S.

But expanding globally wasn’t quite as smooth as we had hoped. In fact, as we launched our general sales operations, Japan and the U.S. ended up experiencing completely opposite outcomes.

In this article, we’d like to share some of the realities—and failures—we encountered while expanding globally, as well as some unexpected reactions that came out of those challenges.

📑 Interactive Quick-Jump Navigation

1 The Challenges and Dilemma of Running a Kickstarter Campaign in the U.S.

In Japan, we successfully completed our Makuake crowdfunding campaign in October 2025. After that, preparations for selling EZ Sign through our direct-to-consumer website, Amazon, Rakuten, and Yahoo! Shopping went smoothly, allowing us to launch general sales as early as November last year.

In the U.S., however, we ran into a series of unexpected challenges. We had originally planned to launch around the same time as Makuake, but Kickstarter’s review process and shipping worldwide took much longer than expected.

As a result, our U.S. campaign launched two months later than Makuake. On top of that, our original goal was to make EZ Sign available to customers around the world. But once we actually started shipping internationally, we quickly discovered just how different each country can be when it comes to shipping methods, customs procedures, and tax requirements.

2 An Unexpected Explosion in Japan—and the Surprising Impact of Short-Form Video

While the U.S. market was struggling to get off the ground, something very different was happening in Japan. Soon after launch, EZ Sign was featured by major Japanese media outlets.

Then, in January, a short video featuring EZ Sign posted on social media generated more than one million views. At its peak, sales in Japan exceeded 1,000 units per week.

3 Catching Up: Integrating Our Japan and U.S. Teams

While sales in Japan took off, the U.S. team launched general sales in February without the same explosive momentum. We realized our Japanese and U.S. teams were operating completely independently, creating their own content.

To run efficiently, we centralized content creation: the Japan team handles core visuals and initial English assets, while the U.S. team fine-tunes for native English nuances. This centralized approach dramatically improved both the speed and quality of our global marketing.

4 Our Next Biggest Challenge: Hitting the “NFC Wall”

As sales expanded on Amazon, we received tough reviews pointing to three major issues: display resolution expectations, app usability, and communication errors during updates.

EZ Sign is completely battery-free, using smartphone NFC for both data and power transfer. For 4-color models, pigments must physically move into position, requiring the phone to supply power continuously for 15–20 seconds. Keeping a smartphone steady that long proved surprisingly tricky for users unaccustomed to precise NFC alignment.

5 Taking on a Major App Overhaul: There Was No Other Option

To resolve usability feedback, we organized user requests and identified over 30 requested improvements across Windows, Android, and iOS.

Ready to explore EZ Sign?