Several companies have learned the hard way that trying to impose even the most popular U.S. products on foreign consumers can backfire without sufficient up-front research and a solid understanding of other cultures and ethnicities. I’ve been privy to a couple of specific instances, but for the sake of protecting the innocent, let’s just note that the mistakes were tantamount to trying to sell, say, a dairy-based drink intended for consumption at the evening meal to French consumers, who drink precious little cold milk as it is, and almost never touch the stuff at the dinner hour.

Lesson #2 Work with concepts consumers already “get”: Beard Papa’s is a Japanese concept whose quirky name is becoming increasingly familiar to hipsters with a sweet tooth on both coasts. In San Francisco, the company’s two locations are regularly packed with students, artists, mothers with young children, and others who have caught a whiff of the chain’s signature products, its cream puffs. At the company’s 14 U.S. locations, light, airy pastries filled with whipped-cream custards of various flavors—including green tea, coffee, pumpkin, and strawberry—are baked on premises and served with a quick shake of powdered sugar.

Clearly, the Osaka-based company is on to something, and a solid grasp of Americans’ passion for freshly made pastries containing high-quality ingredients (the company touts its refusal to use preservatives and its insistence on using organically grown vanilla beans) is an important part of the reason why. What the chain has done is take a product virtually every American can understand and relate to, given it a dash of novelty with some of the more esoteric yet approachable flavors, and come up with something entirely original, yet altogether accessible for the U.S. consumer.

Lesson #3 Foreign intrigue is universal: While it’s perfectly fine to search for inventive ways to offer consumers from, say, Genoa, Italy, a pesto-flavored snack cracker, it’s important to remember that Italians, like Americans and hundreds of millions of other people around the globe, are also interested in new and different flavor experiences. Immigration, emigration, and travel have made more of the world’s cuisines familiar to more of the world’s billions of residents. A new Burger King outlet in Italy, therefore, needn’t—and perhaps shouldn’t—feature only menu items with distinctly Italian flavor profiles. Pad Thai potato chips and Hunan chicken pizzas could work just as well in India, Morocco, Argentina, or Norway as they would in Thailand or China.

Bottom line: It’s a great big world out there, and while certain cultures are more familiar than others with quick-service fare and the American emphasis on convenience and speed, smart chains that devote the creative and analytical resources required to understand new consumer populations and develop creative products that suit them will find millions of willing and eager new customers.