3. So, should I conduct an ICO campaign for my product?

It depends on whether you can integrate the cryptocurrency, sold during the crowdsale, organically into your product.

Regardless of all other factors which may affect any particular ICO, there is one question every startup should ask itself before deciding to even have a campaign. That is whether the ICO digital token can be integrated into the business model in a meaningful way.

For example, the value of Ethers - the tokens which have been released during the ICO of Ethereum - is strongly secured by the fact that they are required to run the DApps in the network.

If on the other hand, the only use for your coin is being bought and sold on an exchange, it practically guarantees that the price will crash very soon after the end of the ICO. As such, the campaign will be unlikely to meet interest from the discerning users in the first place.

A fundamental problem for any digital token released during an ICO is that it’s going to come under massive speculative pressure as soon as it hits the markets. The only thing which can counteract that, and prevent the token from ending up as a useless gimmick, is a similar level of demand for it. And that demand can only be produced by real utility.

To sum it all up, if you think that the use of a decentralized token can increase the value of your product, or it is by design a fundamental part of it - feel free to read on. Otherwise, there are probably better ways to raise funds for your project, such as plain old crowdfunding or VC funding.