Just a warning to those that think they can create a scam ICO, sucker some investors in, and then run off with millions. The long arm of the law may be slow to react, but it often does come around and when it does you could be looking at the rest of your life in prison.
Some recent examples:
https://www.coindesk.com/garza-pleads-guilty-gaw-miners-ceo-cops-9-million-fraud/https://www.coindesk.com/indian-police-charges-onecoin-founder-ruja-ignatova/https://www.coindesk.com/mt-gox-ceo-mark-karpeles-pleads-not-guilty-embezzlement/https://www.coindesk.com/former-dogecoin-exchange-ceo-faces-fraud-charges-uk/So you may be successful and live the good life for a little while, but when the investors find out you scammed them, you will most certainly find yourself looking at some serious criminal charges, not including any civil suits that will not only take every last penny you have but will probably put a lien on any future earnings you make as well.
Now this is not to say you are looking to scam anyone, but it is not simply a case of write whitepaper, launch website, raise millions, retire. But when your stated goal is to come up with something just so you can have an ICO, it sure does smell scammy as that is basically the opposite of what should happen. Normally you have a great idea first, you flesh it out with some concepts, maybe prototype it, get others involved and develop a team, and only when you are at the point of launching it do you look for funding.
Think Shark Tank type readiness, you can't go before the sharks and say give me an idea and money and I may do something with it. Well it is the same thing here, you should already have a viable product or idea and just need some initial (ICO) funds to make it go big. The ICO is not your long term income stream, it is simply a way to get there, but I think that point has now become lost with all the recent hype.
To end with, I am pretty confident in 2-3 years time we will be seeing the same headlines as above except with some of the current ICO promoters names in them instead.