With all due respect to Netflix's Stranger Things, it's easy to understand why Aurora Cannabis Inc.'s Chief Executive Officer Miguel Martin considers Canada's recreational marijuana market to be upside down right now. 

"At least for the moment, it's completely irrational," Martin told BNN Bloomberg in an interview shortly after the release of Aurora's fiscal first-quarter results. 

"When you have situations where with 28-gram discount flower, people are losing money, you've got to choose do you want to be profitable or do you want to have a 15 (per cent market) share?"

It's a stark change from the early days of legalization when Aurora was one of the biggest pot companies out there and then-CEO Terry Booth sought revenue growth regardless of how much it would cost it. And though it's still too early to say whether Martin's strategy is right, Aurora's stock is up almost 14 per cent over the past year as he tries to reshape the Edmonton-based cannabis company into a science-focused organization that sells premium cannabis products in both the Canadian and international markets. 

That said, Aurora still reported an $11.9 million net loss in its first quarter, though it was better than the $101.4 million net loss reported a year earlier. Revenue for the quarter amounted to $60.1 million, down from $67.6 million in the same quarter the year prior.

While its peers like Canopy Growth Corp. and Tilray Inc. traded lower over the same period and continue to fight for market share in the increasingly-fragmented Canadian cannabis space, Martin doesn't appear to be fazed with Aurora's share of the market sliding down around four per cent. 

"When you have a lot of companies willing to lose money selling their products, that doesn't make any sense," he said. 

Under Martin's watch, Aurora is promoting itself as a maker of premium products with extra care towards creating cannabis plants with one-of-a-kind genetics that it can leverage with intellectual property licensing to other producers while being unique enough to convince Canadian budtenders to recommend its offerings over its competitors. 

"I've got a ton of respect for these small craft growers. They're doing well because they're doing a good job," Martin said. "We're losing and others are losing share to them because they're good - not because they're small or because they're any other reasons. We've tried to learn from them. Some of the things we're doing with our new genetics ... looks a lot like what we see [with craft growers]." 

It remains to be seen whether investors remain patient enough to see Martin's plan for Aurora be fully realized. MKM Partners Analyst Bill Kirk said in a note on Friday that Aurora's current growth from its international business and medical cannabis sales is not sustainable over the long term. He also criticizes Aurora's capital structure for having its finance costs higher than its gross margin and expects more carnage to be disclosed in coming quarters. 

"Aurora is a shell of what it was supposed to become," Kirk said. "We still think: more inventory will be written down; more goodwill will be impaired; more assets will be sold for less than book value; and shareholders will continue to get diluted."

But Martin appears to be optimistic that investors will stick with Aurora as it executes on its plan to become profitable as a measure of its adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA), which is on track to happen in roughly a year from now. 

Surprisingly, achieving that profitability milestone will come even if Aurora's revenue doesn't grow that much from its current level. Martin said that's a possibility assuming its share of Canada's medical cannabis market remains intact - it has a leading 24 per cent portion of that segment - and its margins stick above 50 per cent along with the expected cost savings of about $50 million yet to be realized. 

"We don't need revenue growth to get there," Martin said.