What to look at when investing in an ICO

[renchan]

Is a good community, solid team and doable project, notable advisors, and a good token structure enough criteria to choose an ICO to invest in?

Note: This will be my first time ever joining an ICO. I need to know more.

[Probinus]

Is a good community, solid team and doable project, notable advisors, and a good token structure enough criteria to choose an ICO to invest in?

Note: This will be my first time ever joining an ICO. I need to know more.

I'd say yes. If you've been lured in with their idea, then thats probably a good investment. Also take note on their roadmap, the duration and the vision of the project also matters. And have you read their whitepaper? If things are clear and satisfies you for a "win" situation, then go for it. If not, then you go and test the responsiveness and willingness of their community.

[googs84]

Is a good community, solid team and doable project, notable advisors, and a good token structure enough criteria to choose an ICO to invest in?

Note: This will be my first time ever joining an ICO. I need to know more.

We wish that could have been such easy stuff to do but its not. There are so many things we need to know. How can you decide whether the team is solid or not? Its tough job and fake profiles can be created easily over linked in so thats not the way to do it! 

We need to know how projects is getting noticed over the forum, in the community. What people are talking about this project, whether it is getting liked by them and whether the telegram group is highly active or not.

An ICO with successful private sale and pre-sale is good sign but always watch them out whether they are working according to their roadmaps or not? Are they changing the roadmaps over and over multiple times? Then watch out for smelly stuff. 

[siddhipatel]

Hey,so these are things that should be looked into while investing,:

1)The type of project:  ICO projects are mainly of four types – Blockchain Project, Platform, Protocol and Dapp.
 Blockchain Project:  These types of projects are made from scratch and are often developed in order to bypass the issues of scalability that the current blockchain faces. Dapps, platforms and protocols can be built on top of them.
Platform: These types of projects are either made on Ethereum blockchain or any other existing blockchain. With the help of platform, the developers can easily make a Dapp on top of it.
Protocol: Through protocol, users can make their own Dapps or platforms
Dapps: They are distributed applications created on top of platform or protocol.

2)Project stage with respect to prototype: The project can be in either of these three stages
Concept stage: Here the idea of project exists on white paper
MVP/Prototype: Here a prototype exists which can be used or checked by the user
Alpha/Beta Testing stage: Here alpha or beta version of product exists which can be tested by the user or the developers just before the project is launched.

3)Partnerships:  The number and type of partnerships a project has, is very significant.
If the project has partnerships with traditional companies in the sector that it’s planning to operate, then that’s an advantage to the project- for e.g. a blockchain project that’s based on ecommerce having partnership with traditional companies like Amazon, e-bay etc.
Secondly, we have projects where upcoming projects partner with existing  [Suspicious link removed]panies for synergy and strategic alliances
The last type of partnership is strategic partnership where venture capitalists like Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz invest.
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4)Competition: Before investing in any project, it is important to know the kind of competition the project is going to face. If many similar projects are out there in the market, then it means that the project has high competition and in such a case it is important to find out a differentiating factor which will set apart the project from its competitors. On the other hand if the project has low to no competition then it means that it will get the first movers advantage.

5)Team and Advisors: All the major team members especially CTO, CFO, CEO’s past experience from their graduation to their last working experience to their leadership qualities and the type of position they have held in their recent working place also counts. It also helps to know if any founding team members have had successful exits from any other company that they might have started or co founded. Apart from this  what also matters is how powerful the advisors are, if the advisors have been involved in large companies in the same sector and the position they held.

6)Whitepaper:  If the white paper is able to explain the technicalities of the project  in an easy language, then it gets easier to understand for an investor as well as a layman as compared to when the whitepaper is tougher to understand.

7)Relevance of the Project: This refers to how important blockchain is for functioning of the project.

8)Token Details : Various details about the tokens play an important role;
Hardcap: Generally a hardcap of about 30 million is enough, and if a project has a higher hard cap than that, one needs to investigate the reason for it.
Percentage of Token Sale: The percentage of tokens that are up for sale is also important; anything above 50 percent is good
Percentage of tokens for team and vesting period: The total percent of tokens kept aside for team as well as the time period for which it has been locked is essential as it shows the amount of power the team will have over the projects ecosystem. Vesting period is the amount of time the team’s tokens will be locked up for. Vesting period of about 24 months is feasible.

9)Social Media Hype: Since most of the conversations about ICO’s and blockchain happen on Twitter and Telegram, it is important that the projects followers be checked on at least these two social media sites. High number of followers implies large number of people are interested in the project and are aware about it where as low number of followers means the opposites.
 While it might get confusing for any potential investor to look into the above parameters simultaneously , luckily for them our ICO  spreadsheet exists  where upcoming ICO’s have been scrutinised on the above factors and a score has been given to them, higher the score, better it is for investing.

You can check it  out at similar Ico spreadsheet at the given link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZC40Tky3iU36Ca4POnqnneObISFWezHcucMZVMaWGps/edit?ts=5b0e72bb#gid=350127554

[VieleSind]

Do you have any friend whom also is an ICO investor? If you have, I think you should better ask your friend about this problem cause I don't think you'll get what you need here. Nobody will share it for you, they just wanna spam here to earn money from bounty campaign or trying to increase their activity point

[giogio0504]

I think first thing are rating platforms when you are going to invest, because there are a lot of projects and you should filter them somehow. I am looking at www.icoguide.com rates and they seems to be real, and not paid (i checked). Then when you will select several projects you should look at their team, whitepaper, future plans. Besides, project should be transparent.

[rob143]

there is a lot of stuff in where you should really be paying attention,specially if you are trying to put your money in a safe place and you do not want to lose it. The whitepaper, and the community as an example

[Sir Cross]

Is a good community, solid team and doable project, notable advisors, and a good token structure enough criteria to choose an ICO to invest in?

Note: This will be my first time ever joining an ICO. I need to know more.

I'd say yes. If you've been lured in with their idea, then thats probably a good investment. Also take note on their roadmap, the duration and the vision of the project also matters. And have you read their whitepaper? If things are clear and satisfies you for a "win" situation, then go for it. If not, then you go and test the responsiveness and willingness of their community.

Knowing the responsiveness and willingness of the community is also a good way of finding out whether a project is good. Having a positive feedback would attract more investors for the project and thus make it more successful. Sometimes the popularity of the team and advisors contribute to this so checking them out is also key. There are also many ICO reviews which could give you some insights.

[RESPONSIBLE_]

You must understand the white paper well and for what purpose this project is created. If there is no clear description of development or this description is too good, it is better not to enter such a project.

[que91]

You must understand the white paper well and for what purpose this project is created. If there is no clear description of development or this description is too good, it is better not to enter such a project.

IMO, I don't think WP is really important cause every campaign can pay money for an expert to write a WP for them or they can copy WP or another project then just fix a little bit to make it become their project WP. It's really difficult to know exactly what we should check to know it's a good ICO project to invest in or not atm

[kartalgiunti]

I think these criteria are sufficient but you should examine these criteria in detail.
You can learn a lot of useful information from this forum and Telegram groups.

[angelcoins20]

Does a huge community a factor in choosing the right ICO to join with? I'm wondering because I follow most recent ICO's in their telegram group and the thing is the more numbers of followers they have the more success they're getting an example of this ICO's are gigtricks, goodgame ICO, and menlo.one.

[MiniMountain]

I look for the team behind the project, does their product will solve a problem and do they have a strong community. these are the things I look for before investing on a new ICO's but you should always take note that there will be always a risk and rewards on participating in ICO.

[gune68gune]

Is a good community, solid team and doable project, notable advisors, and a good token structure enough criteria to choose an ICO to invest in?

Note: This will be my first time ever joining an ICO. I need to know more.

In my opinion, these criteria are enough to be the basis for decision-making for investment in ICO projects, but you should examine these criteria in detail. The selective you do is the right step to start investing.

[deviltasha]

For rates I am going to www.icoguide.com For me they have real rates, and I believe them.

[Ararbermas]

Is a good community, solid team and doable project, notable advisors, and a good token structure enough criteria to choose an ICO to invest in?

Note: This will be my first time ever joining an ICO. I need to know more.

well first thing first if you want to avoid such issue in doing investment,  then i suggest to make some research first  before jumping into it. Which is through the thread of ICO , white paper or  sites such telegram group ,twitter and etc.  Which you can seek some information about it, 'cause indeed you can easily determine the project if its good or not  using the feedback of some interested investors  so put some effort to read some comments to obtain specific information about the project.  

[Tonygold1967]

For rates I am going to www.icoguide.com For me they have real rates, and I believe them.

This platform is good for rates and I am also looking at it, but this rates are mostly used to select some projects, they you should make research on the projects, follow the community and than make decision. You cannot rely only on rates.

[Dextord]

before we invest we certainly have to look at the concept of the project, the background of the team, read the whitepaper, and see if this project has good potential in the future. as well as read references from ico reviewing websites. if investing in my opinion we should be prepared with what will happen.