Know-How Exchange : Strategy

What are you trying to fund? A commercial enterprise? A non-profit? Some sort of artistic work (a play, movie, etc.)?

Kickstarter is only for the latter. There are other sites that focus on funding for non-profits.

If you are trying to fund a business (which is what I am assuming when you say a tech start up), then it usually comes down to boot strapping (funding it yourself through savings, credit cards, etc.) or the 3-Fs (friends, families, and fools). I wrote a bit about these and other funding issues a while back on my blog: https://expandabroad.blogspot.com/2006/03/sources-of-funding.html

On what someone looks for, it all comes down to risk versus reward. Any startup is a big risk 9I disagree with your statement of "Common sense suggests that the high probability of profit of the start-up (money back + return)"), so a larger reward is hoped for should it be successful. And you try to manage risk as best as possible (such as by investing with people who have a track record of doing startups, or by investing with people who have a beta product already, not just an idea). And a business idea that has a clear path to profitability that it can describe is useful (back some 10 years ago, everyone was aiming for web sites that tried to get more people to look at their sites, but no way to monetize those viewers - now the wining sites have income and profits).

Never heard of anyone doing a 40-60 day refund as a way of eliminating risks. Companies take time to start, and profits won't be seen for a few years (if at all). So all the 40-60 day thing would do is let someone who gets cold feet pull out, but that really isn't enough time for the company to prove anything.