I think Kickstarter is one tool to validate that your idea has people who are interested (assuming you market it well). Since you're putting up one "project", e

I think Kickstarter is one tool to validate that your idea has people who are interested (assuming you market it well). Since you're putting up one "project", even with stretch goals it's not really the most data-driven way to get to product market fit. You don't really have people using the product in real-time and iterating on it as you would a live web app, for example. But it's still better than putting in thousands of dollars on a hardware investment without even knowing there's interest! The other problem is if you find you're not building the right thing, you can't scrap it and build something entirely different because if you're funded you've made an obligation to your backers. And that can be a long arduous process to fulfill orders/incentives/perks. Not really the lean startup philosophy, but I still like that Kickstarter is a great way to find demand for an idea.