Good post. I think many of us focus on the product and modifying it first (before questioning sales / marketing tactics) because we are developers, we know how

Good post. I think many of us focus on the product and modifying it first (before questioning sales / marketing tactics) because we are developers, we know how to code, and in fact we actually enjoy tinkering with our product; it gives us a sense that we're doing something consequential that could change the dynamics of the situation. The unfortunate truth is that early in a product's lifecycle, I suspect the quality (as programmers measure it) of the product, the beauty (or lack thereof) of the codebase, and even outright bugs, misfeatures, and poor performance, are not the reasons the product does or does not get traction. As OP says, what gets traction is product/customer fit -- the NEED a potential customer feels for the product. And if the wrong customer is pitched, and the right customer does not know about your product, all the tinkering and new features and bugfixes and refactoring in the world will not change that situation. TL; DR: Programmers have code hammers, so they just bang the product nail again and again.