What do you mean? ICOs and altcoins are two different things. ICO, which is also usually termed as "token sales" means Initial Coin Offering/s. ICOs are sort of like crowdfunding, whereas you get a certain amount of a certain cryptocurrency in exchange for your offering (usually bitcoin and ethereum).

Are ICOs profitable? It completely depends on the cryptocurrency, but most are since prices usually go higher after those cryptocurrencies or altcoins hit exchanges.

More in-depth definition of ICOs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_coin_offering
You can view ICOs here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=159.0