[thomasf1]

Kickstarter would be great for this, especially building a community.

Maybe a way would be to do a 5$ Kickstarter for people to get early access to the app, even before their friends can buy it from the App Store. This could work through the Apple Enterprise Program, but it might not be allowed in the small print...

That could generate some hype, and backers would have something exclusive for a while till it´s available in the app store. It also would build a community that surely gives great feedback and the first few iterations wouln´t need to go through the app store approval process (which would mean faster iterations / feedback).

[thoughtpeddler]

Absolutely. There's nothing worse than debuting an app just to have it destroyed by 1-star reviews commenting on stupid things you could have learned about through a more open beta process that something like Kickstarter would allow.