What platforms or websites do you use to track projects before your ICO?
You can check here
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=159.0. Some projects do with pre-launch and announce their future ICO or crypto project, yet can't say that they are reliable enough to participate with.
And what criteria do you use to invest in them?
* transparency
* liquidity
* the system used
* purpose of the project
However, we can't fully verify the worth of the projects earlier until the time has come they are in the full run. Yet, many of the projects didn't reach the middle of the process and just vanish.