I am been involved in ICO since last year June and made a few mistakes in investing in not so good ICOs as well as some successes in ICO.
After learning from my own experiences, I would like to share some ideas on how to pick ICOs that have good chances for doing well.
1) Good Business Case.
Many ICO do not have a firm business case to be on the blockchain. I think a blockchain business with a viable business case is important. The business must also organically create demand for their tokens. For example, Binance coin BNB incentives traders on Binance to hold it as it helps to reduce the commissions they have to pay, and at the same time BNB holders are rewarded with part of the exchange's profits. The company Binance also buys back their own coins and burn them. This is organic demand which does not rely on them even having holders of BNB, as Binance will buy back their own coin.. organic demand.
2) Small Hard Cap.
To date I have observed that ICO with less than $40mil in hard cap has a higher chance of success and get sold out faster. Selling out fast is an important indicator of future demand for the token and crypto exchanges also look at this before they list the coin. And with more crypto exchanges listing the coin, it will also mean a greater demand for the coin.
3) Team Members with Previous Success.
There are so many ICO nowadays that we are seeing new faces on ICO often. And many may not have the experience to run a proper ICO. Hence a ICO with experienced hands is important especially if some of the members were part of previous success.
4) Advisors with Pull Factor
While advisors should not be an important determinant of the ICO success, I have noticed that ICO with credible advisors tend to attract more investors as people recognises famous names. Vitalik does not endorses ICO as an advisors anymore but there are other founders who are participating as advisors. Their presence means something.
5) Marketing
Marketing is key. For ICO who have good marketing, you will see that they have a lot of members in their telegram channel. You will also see good participation in their chat and ANN thread. I would say at least 5000 members in their telegram group is a minimum for me to consider them as having good marketing.
With these 5 indicators passing muster, I will then download their whitepaper and do my due diligence. Recent good finds are Experty, ArcBlock and now MediChain. These 5 facts are my first cut before i read their whitepaper and ask my test questions for the CEO or admin on their telegram groups. If the CEO is never present and the admin cannot answer technical questions.. I will not participate in the ICO.
Hope these factors will be helpful to some of the members on bitcointalk.
BoonsterX
P.S. If anyone finds my inputs useful, pls do donate some merit
Thank you. Thank you.