i do make researches into my ICOs before investing into it because that is one the possible ways to avoid throwing your money into some useless ICO. Researching into the ICO also gives you a fair idea about the development plans of the project and makes you to make an important decision as to how much to invest, how long to hold the tokens before selling it off.
I myself have lost some funds to ICO project, but that was when I did gamble with my projects too, I just look at the project using what the whitepaper says without doing further research, but ever since I have been doing a thorough research before investing in ICO, I have not really had any issue.
Most time, if I need to make any further investment, I don’t invest in pre ICO ales, I don’t invest immediately when they even get listed on exchange, except I am in for the pump, if I believe in the project for a long term investment, I wait for it to be listed, get reviews and see their performance, mostly the one in TOP 30 in what I look into for now.