I like this take, but you're saying something different I think, which is more along the lines of "Customers don't care about how the sausage is made".

You didn't polish a turd, you found something that could be valuable to someone and found a way to make it into a polished product, which is great.

But "You can't polish a turd" implies it's actually a turd and there's nothing valuable to be found or the necessary quality thresholds can't be met.