Depends on the business and the definition of marketing. Elon did/does very little traditional marketing. Personally, we did zero marketing for the website we built and ran before it gained traction (quality content) and then boom, Time Warner bought it. 

 This is not true. PayPal did a lot of marketing back in the early days. This was his big ticket sale. From there he already gained personal brand notoriety which only grew with bold attempts like a space company. 

 It was true for us. 

 I don’t know what you did so I can’t comment on that … 

 We did very little marketing 😁 before gaining traction and growing a significant readership. Same as a number of online publications at the time. Akin to DPReview before it was bought up by Amazon…