Key to succesful altcoin

[FruitsBasket]

Hello,

I am intersted in altcoins. Not neccesarry creating them, but I want to know more about them.
I know that almost all alt coins are modified clones of bitcoin. And that PREMINED coind are a scam and that ICO is supportive fir your coin and that a Wall is like an autobuy of they exchange.

Please learn me something useful about them. How will an altcoin be a succes?

[Moloch]

Altcoins generally need 2 things to be successful

1) Constant coding... it has to keep up with bitcoin core, or it will not succeed... when bitcoin core moves from version 0.11 to 0.12, you must do the same, and integrate all/most of the new bitcoin core features (or be prepared to be left in the dust)

2) You must have a niche that separates you from the pack... this could be anything, but it must be something that people want, and bitcoin does not offer (extra anonymity, extra features, etc)

[d5000]

There are two possibilities:

- The easy way: Clone Bitcoin or an existing altcoin, don't abuse with premining and maybe add an airdrop to get a good bunch of shills. Invest a LOT of time in marketing at Bitcointalk and other platforms. Add sometimes some irrelevant code to prove "you're developing actively". If you're lucky, you can get some thousands of $ of profit, but it will last only for a short time.
- The hard way: Look for a problem that cryptocurrencies actually have. One example is scalability / blockchain size. Create a concept that solves that problem. Or alternatively: think about a useful feature actual cryptocurrencies do not have. You must also invest a lot of time and money in marketing, but the potential outcome is better and will last longer. That's the way Peercoin, NXT, NEM, Ethereum and even (to certain extent) Litecoin (with shorter confirmation times) were created.

[FruitsBasket]

Thank you both very much for explaining me how to do this.
I know that it is not an easy thing to do, so I will invest time in it to research about it.
Also I will search more things about btc, so I understand what a coin exists of.

Thanks!