How much promotion and how much creation before 5 000 subs?

[Broccoli Shmoccoli]

I read in a blog post that it's extremely important to promote your channel in the first period before it picks up to the first 5 000 subs. The author argues that when you start uploading and the views and subs are slow, and there is obviously some substantial time passed from the first uploads, people might be turned off from subbing and even choosing to watch at all because of the small amount of views since they will see that the whole thing is kinda small and slow. I know that brand / channel design is very important when it comes to deciding to subscribe but they don't land on your channel until they watch one of your videos... So what should be the ratio between promotion and content creation? Should I upload a few videos and spend days only promoting them or do both - create and promote to the fullest extent? How do you do it?