What's the right balance of PR and marketing vs engineering for a small team?

During the MVP to product market fit transition it's tempting to spend a bunch of time on marketing.

This can be amazingly time consuming. Reaching out to writers. Working on your landing pages. All this takes time.

Of course, you could also spend that time listening to customers and working on the quality of your product.

My theory is that if you build an AMAZING product that eventually it will get press coverage.

But at the same time, not really. There are tons of examples of companies who were marketing -first and had tons of growth hacks integrated into their product - even before they launched.

I think part of it also comes from your connections, and how good you are at marketing and playing the game.

Curious to hear the thoughts of other Indiehackers.