Yes, I agree with this i have many times i buy some newly listed coins in the market and it seems not a good start, and when i hodl more than a month the price when up and gaining x10 profit. There are other coins that are pretty seemed scams to me that i hodl more than a year and the price is still the same as i buy that coin. Being a long investor is a good idea and patience is always all the time that's my method of my success.
lucky for you if you can still get profit even after a year-long of hodling. very few alts can survive in the market for such period as most of them slowly decline its price after few months in trading. if you find one that keeps on rising, that means, the dev is doing something for the project to gain its value. not many projects can sustain their developments though.
and if you buy a specific alt, make sure that youve done your part of assessment. because most of these dev teams are good in making promises and drawing good plans but they cant implement what they want.