I don't think that's plausible, he would have to had at least a few small ones. And if I recall my memory of reading Facebook Effect and Accidental Billionaires, both books say that he was able to get something, though nothing big.

But more importantly, does that matter? There are tons of great projects here on HN that are never able to get any customers. Does that make their work any less impressive? Let's judge the work for the work itself, not whether or not it achieved something. Obviously, it's a dog-eat-dog world, but you wouldn't look at a founder with a string of failures and automatically come to the conclusion that the person doesn't know how to do a startup. Luck, economic environment, and a host of other issues come into play. Judge the work for its own merit.

Well the work being judged here is the marketing effort, not the engineering work.

My question was more ... well, just a question. I was hoping somebody will either confirm that or deny.

If it was simply just a question, I would have imagined that a more natural phrasing would be: "Did he manage to get any advertisers?" And if you wanted to make it really clear (although not necessary at all), I imagine you could say something like: "Just curious, did he manage to get any advertisers?" The words that you did use dripped with condescension, no?