There are some blog posts that state the obvious so well. A case in point is Union Square Ventures’ Fred Wilson’s post on marketing, which he caps off by proclaiming that:

“Marketing is for companies who have sucky products. If you build something that is amazing (think Flipboard or Instagram or Instapaper) people will adopt it because it is amazing. And you won’t have to do much marketing, at least at the start.”

Aside from Wilson’s stature within the tech community and the fact people tend to listen to the money guys, the post has captured so much attention because it reveals a truth no one really talks about: if a service or product sucks, it doesn’t matter how much marketing a company does. In other words, you can’t put lipstick on a pig.

Unfortunately, there are far too many pigs within the online world. The biggest cause of the “pig problem” is there low barriers to entry and how excited people get about new and shiny things. Building a new online service takes nothing more than an idea – not even a good one- and some developers – not even good ones. In no time at all, you’ve got a service that you think the world wants or needs.

Truth be told, most of these services have no or little interest. At best, they might be features within a product that solves a problem or creates new opportunities to delight. Nevertheless, entrepreneurs toil away at trying to convince the world they’ve built a better mousetrap and, in the process, spend a lot of effort and dollars on marketing activity such as public relations, search engine optimization, social media, AdWords and events littered with swag.

Sadly, these efforts are for naught because they can’t hide the fact their service or product has no appeal and/or isn’t wanted to needed.

When I talk to clients about marketing and social media, one thing I make abundantly clear is at the end of the day, their product or service has to be great or needed. It has to solve a problem or do something new or different in a way that consumers easily discover and embrace. Without a solid foundation, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to build PR, marketing or sales programs on top of it.

It’s the reason that I often talk entrepreneurs away from using a PR agency as a way to attract attention until they gain some customer traction. Without success, start-ups risk being just another company with a quasi-interesting idea as opposed to being something that actually has interested and engaged customers, which is a big difference.

Wilson’s post should be required reading because of its “truthiness”.