Participation in ICO or investment at pre-ICO stage is a very risky step. Its just like purchasing a shop on 40th floor and the ground floor of that shopping mall is just start to build.
There are so many ideas/concepts is trying to prevail in the market but is there any formula to separate strong project from scams/weak projects.
Which scale should an investor use to go before investing in a coin? Is it the code, or the system it based, or their community strength, or is it depends on their venture capital that how much big it is?
investing in an ICO or any other unknown project is a high risk investment
you can try and guesstimate the potential based on the team , whitepaper and the concept but it is 50/50 - it is either going to bring you some profit or fail dramatically and bury your coins
actually , around 80% of the ICO and similar projects are unsuccessful or a blatant scam
if you are new to the market , do not try to find the next BTC or ETH project ( in terms of success and capitalisation )
try to go for low risk , low reward coins and projects that yield steady income , doesn't matter if it is low
if you feel risky , invest tiny sums into several promising high risk projects , if any of it does x10 in the future, you will return your investment
in my experience , it is better to hodl a basket of crypto , for example BTC , LTC , ETH and XRP
this sort of investment should see you better returns in the long run than participating in any high risk projects