I think it should be pointed out what is needed for a "successful ICO" and what is needed for "successful business AFTER the ICO" are two completely different subjects.
In our experience what is needed for a successful ICO;
1. Very Flashy Website
2. Big Team with Beautiful Pics and LinkedIn Profiles
3. Whitepaper with lots of graphics
4. Informative and Promotional Videos
5. $100K Marketing Budget to use popular ICO alert/listing services
It is 99.9% about IMAGE. It is unfortunate but most people invest in what "looks" good (many people even believe team pics = due diligence!) However this is also why there are so many "successful ICO's" which will fail as businesses AFTER the ICO because they lack basic business fundamentals (and most of these were only interested in raising money for the ICO to filter into their pockets and never had intentions of running a business).
I put this in posts before and from a venture capital standpoint there are certain criteria most ICO's are lacking.
For example, in venture capital you have analysis strategies;
Basic Venture Capital funding starts with "Show me a"...
1. Simple explanation of the business (1 sentence, what do you do?)
2. Clear revenue stream (How does the business make $?)
3. Defined exit strategy (How does the investor make $?)
From an investor standpoint, the Company should have...
1. Industry (growth with first mover advantage)
2. Exit Strategy (investor liquidity event)
3. Financial Return (significant for early stage, +50%/3yr.)
Making the investment...
1. Look at Big Picture
2. Find the downside
3. Protect your downside
What we believe makes for a "good" ICO should have the following:
1. Transparent Team
2. Use of Escrow
3. Team Tokens limited to Milestones
4. White Papers
5. Business Plans
6. Practical use of Technology
7. Token Distribution %'s
8. Limited Token Supply
And I would add to this to look for INDUSTRY IMPACT (in the "real" world outside the ICO/Crypto), FINANCIAL PRODUCTS (not necessary but they seem to have more impact), MARKET PENETRATION STRATEGY AND VIABILITY (how many times, especially in our market, do we see "Global"... i.e. we are going to be a "global" platform... that is a nice idea but you can sell hamburgers "globally" before you have traction in a local market - try to show me one business that went global before it was local - this will be one of our Medium articles).
This is a great post, thank you for the information. I am looking to break it down into parts, hence the first part. The second part will focus on the whitepaper, the website and the creation of a wallet.
I don't believe that it is 99% marketing though, i do believe that marketing is extremely important but it still needs a strong team and a great concept. The crypto world still has a lot of people who are not throwing their ETH just because of a flashy site and look into all the flaws and information available about the new altcoin.