Look for coins or token that are used for the real-life case.
You must pick one of sample ico, find and learn about that whitepaper, project, and the team behind the ico.
Personally, I do not like ICOs. The reason is that I like graphs and data and look at data ICOs provide very little of this. So I only invest when they are established somewhat.
Right now, there are too many icos and some of this are a scam and some are not. So before joining ico you should check it first before joining by doing some research.
I just found this useful list of icos
https://cryptolinks.com/ico Hope that you can find a good.