Sometimes marketing activities require financial support. Whether it's just to hire a team, build a prototype, get some equipment or whatever, you normally need a little bit of cash to get it done.

I remember the first time I said to an investor that we'd give our service away for free and have no control - they looked at me like I was nuts.

So how do you do it so that you can do what you want and keep the bean counters happy? 

Give him a copy of the beattles - "Can Buy Me Love"

No, really!  Unless other people think that this is a topic that has been thrashed to death, I'd love to hear a definition of Pinko that you could explain to an accountant. 

I believe (I am new to this term) that Pinko Marketing and the startup of a new venture are two separate things.

In speaking with an accountant regarding Pinko Marketing practices, you could go down the route of engaging in authentic dialogue with people that might buy or have bought your products and services, through this approach an organization could learn what's important to individuals, what they want, etc. to improve product and service offerings for the organization which translates into more dollars. I would investigate with the accountant, the value of a trusted relationship between an organization and an individual?  I believe this could be determined through lifetime value measures, etc.  In addition, I believe this type of approach could reduce marketing costs for an organization that typically spends a great deal on expensive (sometimes unmeasurable) tactics under the fallacy that one can manipulate an individual to buy or be moved through a buy cycle. 

Regarding the business plan when telling a potential investor that you are giving the service away for free and you have no control, that would depend on the service but I would imagine that if it is a vehicle/platform by which organizations can engage in dialogue with individuals as mentioned above, its value can become great. Then one would need to determine how to monetize it without breaking the trust of the people that invested in the platform with their thoughts and conversations.  I suppose once you had traction that you might be able to implement a subscription model,  paid access to additional features, non-cloaked surveys/research on behalf of organizations, others? 

Wow MikeMc...for being new to this topic, you do a mighty fine job of explaining it in layperson's terms!