Long enough to fund all costs and necessary growth activities until either: A) The business generates enough profit to be self-sustaining, or B) The business

Long enough to fund all costs and necessary growth activities until either: A) The business generates enough profit to be self-sustaining, or B) The business is bought and thus this is all someone else's problem now C) The business manages to convenience investors that all it needs to get A or B is throwing more money into the pot to keep things going a bit longer When the market tightens A is king and B/C become a lot harder hence why everyone stops caring about 'soft' metrics like fluff and user growth and starts caring a lot more about hard facts... like is this great idea actually making any money!