Every successful product has an excellent core set of features (the steak) and sales and marketing efforts to get these features noticed (the sizzle).

If you're building a product, you need to decide who is in the driver's seat. The one who is responsible for creating the steak or the one who is responsible for creating the sizzle. Both have what it takes to achieve their targets, but they seldom have the same targets.

The one who is responsible for creating the steak is passionate about shipping the best product out to customers, to constantly work to introduce features that the customers might not realise they need, to strive for better usability, better performance.

The one who is responsible for creating the sizzle is passionate about getting the attention of as many people as possible, in as little time as possible, to sell the product to anyone willing to open their wallet, to drive up the top-line and the bottom-line.

Either can drive your product. But if you want to build a sustainable business, to build a tribe of customers, you must realize that the sizzle fizzes out fairly quickly and it is the steak that is left exposed.

(Hat tip to @dendrobates)