One thing for a software or services based company, but if you are a product based company that needs significant capital investment to get production started, and you haven't got any credit history to be able to get a bank loan, then crowd funding seems to be a legitimate way to go. Plus you get the added bonus of getting marketplace validation from your actual customers if they fork out the money to subscribe to you.

First responder to this thread was pretty much lambasting all projects that opt for the crowd funding pathway, which I think is a grossly unfair judgement call.

Then talk to investors to take investment.

I don't think its unreasonable that someone who takes a risk on giving you money in your infancy to realise your product should get some equity or something else from it that's more than just a "preorder".

It's crazy how many people do not realize that "bootstrap" as in "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps" is a sarcastic MOCKERY of that sort of sentiment. It's like we need new idioms. Here's a suggestion: "This poor new mother doesn't need welfare, she can live off her own milk!" I bet it would take a long time before "live off your own milk" degrades to being taken non-sarcastically…