I'll add on to this, though I don't really want to — my entrepreneurship experience pales in comparison to OP. However, I think I have a key insight. What OP

I'll add on to this, though I don't really want to — my entrepreneurship experience pales in comparison to OP. However, I think I have a key insight. What OP thinks is marketing is not marketing. Marketing is all about finding out what problems your customers are facing and making them aware of how your solution can help them solve said problems (ideally, you do this truthfully and your product is actually helpful, and it's even better if your product is the best solution available). Marketing is not simply throwing your product "out there" and hoping that customers will buy it, even if you slap a big label on it that says "this solves problem X." Talk to customers. If the only two things you ever do is learn about people's problems and build things to solve them, you have a better chance of success versus someone with a billion dollar budget who does not do both of these two things.