My first suggestion to new people getting into crypto is don't panic. It's very exciting to see the prices change 24/7, the they go both directions. Don't worry about 10% or 20% loss in a day or even a couple hours, look at the long term. In terms of which crypto to invest in there are many interesting options. I personally don't love bitcoin and it's forks to the level they are hyped. I suggest reading or at least taking a look at the white papers of coin you want to invest in (available on the coins website). A few interesting ones are ripple, iota, Monero and Caradano (and of course Ethereum). You can see the different coins on coinmarketcap.com, look at their website as well as see what exchanges have them. If you are looking to buy coins that you can't use USD (or your country's currency) to purchase directly, look at which crypto you can use to buy them on the exchanges, if they are available to buy with ethereum, it might be a better choice to buy ethereum for this purchase instead of bitcoin because of the high transaction fees that bitcoin has. There are many exchanges available, if you are in a country where coinbase is available that might be the easiest way to get started. To buy other coins you can use exchanges like binance and bittrex.