Determining whether an ICO is worth investing in is tough. Often we are introduced to a new ICO from a FaceBook feed, or an article usually including someone’s referral link. Usually people just say DYOR or say SCAM! Pretty much the most useless things if you don't know what they're talking about. So, let’s get into, Doing Your Own Research.
The Website and the White Paper
This is where it all begins. You need to visit your ICO's in question's website and read their white paper. Some of them are long. Really long. The longest one I've read was 85 pages. You need to do this. You will understand a lot better, what you're getting into. The website should have some form of SSL encryption. To the left of their URL should be a lock symbol and says Secure. The URL prefix should be https://. This means, you have end to end encryption with the website.
The Presentation
A bad looking white paper, doesn't necessarily mean a bad ICO, but the amount of effort that went into the documents and the website will likely reflect the amount of effort that goes into the rest of the project. Look for layout, typos and anything else that just looks wrong, sloppy, or incomplete.
The Content
The content of the white paper is important because this tells you what you're investing in. This will tell you if it's a Proof of Work coin, Proof of Stake coin, if there's staking and how. Fees for using the network. Revenue plans, and if they have profit sharing. They should also lay out the general concept for the technology and what problems they solve. Then you need to decide if you align with these concepts and feel the problem they solve is valuable.
The Team
This is probably one of the most important aspects of the white paper. This is where it gets kind of creepy. You need to profile these people with their online presence. The very first place you should start is of course, googling their name and see if anything funny comes up. Look for LinkedIn profiles. They are a wealth of information. Most professional individuals have a LinkedIn profile. If you feel comfortable enough, reach out to them and ask them a question or two.
The GitHub
Not all Crypto's have public GitHubs, but if they do check them out! If you're looking to invest in them, try installing their software or compiling their code if they have it. I strongly recommend you install on a VM. Certainly not on any computer you trade with or have wallets on. Make sure it compiles and does what it says it does.
Resources
Realize that ICOs are always a gamble. There are ways to better your odds if you dig deep enough. I mentioned earlier about LinkedIn. Always a great resource. Also check out places like ICOBench, ICORating, BitCoinTalk Altcoin Announcement Forum and of course the various SubReddits dedicated to either the ICO itself or ICOs in general. They are a great place for opinions and could point out potential red flags that you may have missed.