[ACCount37]

The stated goal was always to have a lot of ships, and also to have them be reusable.

Starship is a fuel-hungry beast - it can get to LEO by itself, but it needs a lot of tanker launches to go beyond. And if your goal is a Mars colony, you don't want to be limited to one launch per launch window.

[timeninja]

Still, LEO is halfway to anywhere in the Solar System, so that's exciting.

[HPsquared]

Also you can assemble things in LEO from multiple launches. Once you're up there, you have a lot more freedom in terms of size and shape.

[dotancohen]

Halfway to anywhere, but the window to anywhere is quite small. For Mars, I think it's only a few weeks every two years or so. So having a lot of mass already halfway there when the window opens would be quite advantageous.