No way... you haven't missed the boat.  

Have a look at this though:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2156522.msg21589362#msg21589362

"It kills me to see that people are investing precious bitcoin with so little patience.  

I often see this with new investors... fomo all-in on one coin because a bunch of noobs are talking about it (good sign it's top), then sell for a loss to fomo a lesser all-in on another.  

The key to success in this game is patience.  

Find good projects.  Then find a good place to buy them.  Then wait.

I like spreading my bets around... so I do serious research to determine how much of my portfolio I want a particular asset to represent.

For example:  Ardr is a really serious project with a really serious team.  It's on several big exchanges / therefore pretty liquid.  I might be ok having a bag that represents 15-20% of my portfolio on something like this.  Other coins that don't meet these criteria (they might be really ambitions but with unproven dev team... or maybe they just aren't that liquid) might be a good pick to represent 3-5% of your portfolio.

I understand that a lot of times, when you are new... you don't have much to play with.

If this is you (no shame, we all start somewhere), pick two projects... join the slacks so you know what's going on.  Follow twitter posts about the projects.  Read the forums.   This will help you judge sentiment.  
Make sure to buy at a good time to minimize a drawdown..... you can take a free trading course at www.babypips.com to help you realize what is a good buy and what isn't.  

When you have entered 1-2 projects, hold on for dear life.  Fight the temptation to sell for a loss (unless you really fucked up with your buy... but I'm sure you will make a few mistakes along the way.)
There is a lot of hype in crypto.  Do not fall into the cycle of chasing hype.  You want to buy projects BEFORE everyone else is talking about them, not AFTER.  If everyone and their mother is talking about something, it's likely too late.

Make sure to check out www.coinmarketcap.com.  My favorite projects are those with <200mm market cap.  This is because there is a lot of potential upside for low-medium cap projects.  

Good luck investing guys... it's a wild ride but can be incredibly rewarding.  Learn to realize your faults, sit on your hands, and learn from your mistakes.  Becoming a successful investor takes time.  There is a reason 90+% fail.  Be persistent."

Is this going to be one of the projects you are going to commit yourself to?  Do you want to go balls deep learning about Xel and do you want to hodl Xel for months even if you are underwater?

I think it's a great project and it could be "that" coin to many people, but you need to make your own decisions.