You can succeed on the steem blockchain without putting in any of your own money. We were always told that the best way to grow on steemit is to power up by buying Steem or Steem Backed Dollars from an exchange.
That is still true buy you can go around it by winning many contests and then use the prize money to hire upvote bots for your posts.
Best of luck, check out my blog for more tips 
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