I think the thing is that the project lacks good marketing on various resources to attract new customers.
This is the main problem of many new projects related to blockchain. The blockchain industry itself is relatively young and developing. It is very difficult to promote something here even if the project is interesting.
I would argue with you there are many projects that collected just cosmic sums on the ICO of the same Bancor and many others.
I think a lot depends on the initial funding for the project and its promotion
You want to say that these projects had some outside capital for promotion ? I think everyone starts out relatively the same.
You are mistaken. The success of the project depends very much on how it will be served by the developers and how actively it will be promoted . The future of the project depends on it.
No need to look superficially the development of the project. First of all, the big role is played by the project idea, the development team and the feasibility of the conceived in the real world.PR is certainly important but not as important as the product and the idea of the project