Author is trying to say something like: If you want to sell people a tesla, first and foremost, you have to tell them it's a car and it behaves exactly like a

Author is trying to say something like: If you want to sell people a tesla, first and foremost, you have to tell them it's a car and it behaves exactly like a car. If that is not a given, they won't buy it, no matter which bells and whistles it has additionally to getting you from A to B. So if we go back to the topic of the article, it means: If you want to sell a big data platform, first you must make people believe it can replace their old traditional database, but make it faster.