A safest strategy for beginners is to wait for a big exchange to list a token and buy it from there, because listing means that there is a strong community support for a project. Respected exchanges rarely list shitcoins.

With such strategy investor might miss some profits if a project skyrockets before listing on a big exchange, but the risks to loss money will be decreased. Basically, investor will trust an exchange to make a research for him, which is a perfect strategy for newcomers who can't afford spending hours researching and monitoring news for each project.