Alternatives to launching an ICO?

I'd be interested on peoples thoughts on what alternative routes someone could take if they wanted to launch a blockchain related project. From looking at ICOs and the funding they get I think the sort of money been thrown around is too massive and comes with too much responsibility.

Let me paint a hypothetical picture:

I create an app which is reliant on blockchain to function.
It has two ends, let's say a worker and a user.
The worker is paid in tokens for adding to the app (eg: erc20/project tokens)
The user is paying a monthly/yearly subscription to use the app. ETH or Project Token for simplicity.

Imagining that I could get a simple prototype of the whole process/project working, obviously I would then need to get people more skilled than me to polish it and make it secure etc, before it would be launched for public consumption.

I can see that this is the point where an ICO would come into play, as I would need to use funds to fuel the development.
But any alternatives at this stage?

Too many questions in relation to this as I am just trying to play it out in my mind and I know the question is vague. But maybe someone who is considering developing something like this in the future might add their own thought process on how they plan to move forward.

First question is why would an app be reliant on the blockchain? An alternative is to raise money for your app using Kickstarter (if you are in a qualifying country) if its not really blockchain related.

drogon said:

First question is why would an app be reliant on the blockchain? An alternative is to raise money for your app using Kickstarter (if you are in a qualifying country) if its not really blockchain related.

Click to expand...

Bare in mind this is very new to me so I'm as much just talking it out loud to try and understand and get a bigger picture of how everything may work together.
Also, as full disclosure, I am trying to incorporate blockchain into it rather than starting from a place of thinking, 'I need to use blockchain for this'.

I was thinking along the lines of a kind of hybrid set up. The application itself, at the customer end, wouldn't be reliant on blockchain. It would just work as a standalone and takes the information it needs for a particular task from a database. The solutions for these tasks need to be done by someone in the first place. The incentive to do these tasks would be through the payment of tokens. I guess that's the part where I see a smart contract coming into it. Once the particular task is done it doesn't need to be done again so the person who did it first will be the one to get paid for it. Also a part of the system would be that this completed task is checked by others who are also incentivised to do this through tokens.
Looking at it I guess it is really a tokenized eco-system I'm imagining there.
I see a company launched an ICO which is very similar to my idea but not using my main 'selling point'.

Looking at Kickstarter and the country I'm from and the one I live in both qualify. Thanks for that, it gives me an alternative direction to think in in realtion to this.