I usually discuss with my friends and my brother before investing in altcoins. Always check into the cap size, read the whitepaper, the team which is on board (are they experienced or not) and also always ask yourself is it reliable because there are a lot of frauds these days. Are they running a campaign, on bountyhive or even here on BTCTalk, check out the ICO and then compare their attributes to other altcoins. When its all said and done don't double think it, its a altcoin at the end of the day, you really should't be afraid of losing your investments, I personally tried day trading with altcoins, sometimes lost, sometimes gained, that's the crypto world.