[abrookewood]

There are lots of startups that expect to lose money for a lengthy period of time while they attempt to capture the market or grow to a sufficient scale that their business becomes profitable.

In fact, it's not even limited to startups. I worked for Red Bull many years ago and when they open a subsidiary in a new country, the only metric that matters for the first few years is how much money they are SPENDING on marketing & promotion - sales just aren't that important until the brand has been established.