Marketing was already happening.
The most commonly misread finding in this report: no marketing department is the same as no marketing.
Proof propagating on its own is not the same as no marketing, and this is the most commonly misread finding in this report.
Many of these companies had no formal marketing department during the early ramp, and several reported no paid-media spend. None of them had no marketing. Positioning, packaging, pricing, the new name you give the buyer, community, developer relations, launch sequencing, and proof distribution were all being done. Founders and product teams did them under other names, and the formal function often arrived later to document and scale the motion.
Cursor reported no paid-marketing spend and had about 60 people at $300M ARR. Bolt had fewer than 10 in go-to-market. Lovable’s first year was founder posts, community, and a reseller program. Gamma’s was an onboarding fix, a watermark, and a creator program the CEO ran himself.
Two conclusions you can draw: First, the absence of a department is not evidence that the work is optional; it is evidence about who did it and when. Second, if you are hired into one of these companies after the ramp, the upstream work may never have been written down, and documenting it is likely to be your actual first project.