The most obvious way to earn or collect an initial capital for any DApp designed on Steem is to launch its SMT's.
Its in the interest of Steem to launch SMT's as right now the only way they can support promising projects is by delegating Steem to them. But when these projects will be able to launch their own SMT's Steem delegation would not be needed as these projects would then buy Steem.
To complete the economic cycle or model of Steem SMT's are needed.