look for the underdogs, a promising coin that everyone hates or no one gives a shit about. that coin will make u rich
Will? No.
May? Yes.
As for those underdogs, it may be hard to tell which one survives and which one not .... some of them die, some of them (like TIPS) were quite close to death at one time, most will just live without much chance to get to any exchange or having any real value.
The more the coin is closer to death (and thus cheaper to purchase some reasonable amount), the more risk that your investment will just die, but the more profit if the coin takes second breath and will live again. Could be even better if you are able to help the coin somehow after you buy it - though that depends on your skills (are you are good at server administration, programming, or social network manipulation?) in relevant areas of expertise and amount of time or further investments (lack of skill and/or time can usually be solved by setting up some bounty for that task
you are willing to sacrifice for that.
Sometimes the best strategy for a coin would not be to invest X in a coin, but invest perhaps X*0.7 in buying the coins and X*0.3 into improving the coins somehow (setting bounties for tasks that are likely to increase the coin value).
You have to choose coins according of how big risk are you willing to take and how much of time are you willing to spend by caretaking your investment.
For example LTC is stable, so minimal caretaking here, just occasionally watch the exchange rate, but with more minor coins, you have to watch them more frequently - whether it is not going to die completely and then either intervene, trying to save it, or quickly sell remaining coins to minimize the loss. Some events also have influence on the coin, like adding to an exchange, so you may want to take advantage of them and either buy more in or sell some part based on what is the expected outcome of that event.