What are the 3 thing you look for in an ICO?

[OracionSeis]

If you are totally new to ICOs I recommend the following guide as a starting point:

https://coinclarity.com/ico-101/

I'm going to be writing my own personal guide to ICO investing, probably a bit lengthier than the one listed above, having followed the phenomena since 2014.

If I had to limit the criteria to 3 things, I would have to make some sweeping, all-encompassing generalizations:

1. What is the ICO attempting to accomplish that no other project before it has? How original is the idea? Is there a sincere reason why this project could be profitable and successful, or is it just a copycat / clone of another, previously successful idea?

2. Do a gut check on the legitimacy of the ICO. What do your instincts tell you about how sincere the ICO team actually is? Is there a whitepaper, a public dev team, a decent website and decent community interaction?

3. Who is backing or supporting this ICO? Does it have any notable investors backing it, preferably ones with a demonstrable success record? Is it just trying to raise funds from an anonymous public or are there any other companies / individuals signing their support for it?

This is just a summation of about 10-15 different things I research before investing in an ICO.

Thank you for this ! I am new and these kind of posts help a lot - will check your website as well. Great. Especially the third point seems to make a lot of sense to me. It seems as when the projects do not only have the backing of participants from the ICO world, but also the backing of people from the underlying industry, there is a real connection between the two sometimes which can be very good.

Well, that's interesting ideas and as a newbie I have to read very carefully the details of those ICO platforms which been presented in the bounties of altcoins. Most importantly the reputation of the manager can give us an assurance to trust the project, like checking the spreadsheet of the campaign so you can determine how promising that ico been raised to generate good profit. But, we must be more vigilant as always because an ICO doesn't mean successful all the time, there maybe scenario that it will fail like from previous other projects who failed.

The manager has nothing to do with the success of the ICO but yet hes the one who do handle on such marketing stuff been required for him to do on such project. If we do really look up for the ratio on success and failed ICO or projects we would really able to see that Fails is more than on success.This is the reason why we should really be keen on selecting projects on which we would decide to invest on to our money.Usually I do look up for its project potential like usage/real life benfits,next developers experience and transparency.

The manager also as us, they don't know the future of the ICO they are promoting. Therefore, the success of the ICO is depends on the buyer, it isn't depend on the worker or the manager bounty campaign.

[misa999]

1) idea
2) team
3) real usage of the coin
4) status of the project during the ico

Best ico now = Pally app

1) competitor to airbnb - connecting people and provoding experiences to tourists
2) highly skilled and very experienced team
3) provide activity to tourists and get paid by Pal tokens
4) Beta version already alive and the final will be by Q3 or Q4 2018

Join now w/ 25% discount! https://pally.co

[Dart18]

A long term service. Very important.
A lively community. Everyone should be participating on how it could be more valuable.
A strong and active developer and all of its crew. With that everything is possible. Answering every problem or query that have been made is telling people we are a good service.

[Creating N Action]

First, you look the whitepaper and know the works of the team in an ico to get more informations if it is real. Second, be sure that the number of participants who works on projects are more who manage in ico are have reliances to their participants. And lastly you know first how to handle the projects by their participants to completely it and to inspired others.

[Krishan_94]

Team and whitepaper basically.. White paper concludes their mission, target and concept.. If Team and whitepaper both are really good , theres a big chance of that ico becoming a good coin..

[NRF]

For me, I will care about: the team(experience, Founder, advisors), Ideas (possible execution), mobilized capital,...

[JohnJacobA]

Approach it just as one would with any regular investment.
-See the whitepaper, that is the portfolio. A sound portfolio always stands out.
-Next see the logic behind all of it, what exactly are they aiming to achieve and does what their doing really help the problem?
-Try to find the financial logic behind what they are asking for.
-See who is in the project, the more experienced people are involved the lower the risk in general.

The list could go on and on, but you get the idea. There is no 100% success rule, but using simple logical and analytical approach you could minimize your risk of involvement to as little as possible.
Good luck on your investments!

[chidrawarster]

I would see basically the whitepaper & their complete details thorughly about their product if any and understand whats the basic vision. Next , i would see their team involved and would also cross check their social media presence and their previous accomplishments to make me feel more comfortable. Then , i would take a glance on their website and customer support as well to understand their collaboration with customers. I can even take a look into their present commitments and their accomplishments as well for understanding their seriousness towards the project.

[Capt00]

For me, I will care about: the team(experience, Founder, advisors), Ideas (possible execution), mobilized capital,...

It is important also if we check their platform as it will guide to any investors. Team capabilities and experience, and its capitalization will attract more investors to make a certain project into a successful one.

[Blake_Last]

For me, I usually just check and evaluate the team behind the ICO. Why only this? Well, you see, IMO, anyone can hire a skilled writer to write a good white paper and even make a good content for a website. In fact, scammers nowadays usually just hire a writer to write them a white paper and make their project appear legit. But of course, if you are cognizant of the people, which makes up their team, then certainly you'll know whether you can trust them or not even if they have an amazingly written white paper.

Same goes with the concept. Anyone can think of a great concept for a project, but to make a concept work, you need people with expertise and experience to develop and amplify it. They should have something worth showing in their portfolio or a background that justifies why you should trust them and invest your money on their ICO project.

[CryptoLD]

1. How serious looks the project : communication, team, whitepaper
2. Smart contract : does it fills what is promised

Don't even need number 3, more than 90% of ICO don't fill 1 and 2. 

[Antivoid]

I would see basically the whitepaper & their complete details thorughly about their product if any and understand whats the basic vision. Next , i would see their team involved and would also cross check their social media presence and their previous accomplishments to make me feel more comfortable. Then , i would take a glance on their website and customer support as well to understand their collaboration with customers. I can even take a look into their present commitments and their accomplishments as well for understanding their seriousness towards the project.

totally agree with you, it seems you have do a lot of research before investing in an ico, and i would like to know whats the result, does it do help

[Nascor]

I ask myself before investing whether there is a possibility for long-term finance planning, in other words, whether the project can sustain itself beyond the ICO and how it will finance operations in the future. It's very important for any project to have a financial plan, and break up the various expenses for departments IT expenses (hardware,domains,severs)/Marketing and advertising/Legal Expenses/Salaries etc. There should be some sort of break down explaining in detail all these expenses. Other questions that can be asked, are whether for example there is market demand for the specific product/service, what the target market is, and even growth projections for the industry the project is sailing forth. Experience as you've mentioned is one of the most important questions to answer, if the team has a great idea but lacks the technical know-how on how to implement, then the idea become worthless. There are a lot of factors to consider, and even if everything does look alright, things might happen in the future that are unexpected *cough Tezos *cough.