I have several questions about how ICOs work.
I see people raising crazy amounts of money for, often, very weak projects.

- If I have a good project, is ICO actually a viable path for someone like me*?
- Does the token need to have a function, or be backed by something specific besides the company itself?
- Does the token actually need to exist? Could someone just raise money and keep a database of donors and then issue them the "tokens" later?
- I see different types of tokens: pos, pow, etc. What's to stop someone from just using email addresses in a database and calling it a "token"? Like, what makes a token a token?
- can a token represent a share of common stock in a private corporation?
- if so, can I use an ICO as sort of like a "private" IPO? That's how it seems, which is what makes it appealing.
- Does the company/project have to have something to do with or otherwise utilize coin technology (blockchain etc)?

I had intended on starting a corporation and issuing common shares of stock.
Then, I planned to sell that stock to people privately in order to raise funds for my project.
This is a very common and standard way of raising money for a company.

Then I stumble into the world of bitcoin/crypto and I learn (kinda) about ico's.
Now I'm thinking, "shoot, I have a real project that has a fully developed and working alpha. I could throw it up on bct and raise a cajillion dollars with an ICO."

Can someone just school me on why or why not this is good thinking?

Thanks.

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* me = average person, not rich, not politically connected, not on board of any big corporations, etc. I am a software developer that works for a small company.

project = I have a legitimate project that I think is much more interesting than a lot of the stuff I have seen. My code is written and working including a server/desktop application, an android app, an ios app, and a website. But it has nothing to do with bitcoin/crypto in any way.