If short-term technical issues, such as performance problems, are preventing your launch, why not just bring in an experienced developer for a few weeks as a consultant? You wouldn't have to pay them that much, I don't think. It might also be possible to defer payment partially if you are truly cash-strapped.

I don't know if this helps, but for business users, paid, stable, reliable-support, above-board businesses are worth real money. Red Hat makes essentially all their money offering support on a product they themselves make available for free.

Also: your competitor is not copying your content, is he? Is he able to code-up the platform AND pay for content creation on a free product?