Yeah, seems like chemical rockets, or a railgun or trebuchet or something to get it up to speed first would be a lot more efficient than ground to orbit with just a laser.
It's really hard to beat chemical rockets for launch.
It's not generally understood just how remarkable rocket engines are. They're the most efficient heat engines we can make. They are orders of magnitude better than other heat engines in power/mass and power/$. Their Isp is fine for launch, particularly for the first stage where most of the propellant is consumed.
