For a Mini Desktop we use with PCI-E Graphics Card, we use a HDMI Dummy Adapter Set as primary monitor, with Cloning to DisplayLink. This could be an issue with a laptop as you could imagine. But, now the DisplayLink Monitor is fully powered by the NVidia Graphics card. It's not impossible.
HDMI Dummy Adapter:
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/...?ie=UTF8&psc=1
We do this because this is the primary monitor for a CineBot Camera Robot we developed.