Financial Woes for Sploofus as their Sponsor Disappears

I received an email today from Justin Morton, the founder and President of Sploofus Trivia Systems. In it, he stated that his site's exclusive sponsor (the Federal Employee Service center, at http://www.webfederalservice.com) had not paid Sploofus in 60 days and was not responding to his phone calls and emails. As such, he has removed their information from his website, concluding that they must "no longer wish to sponsor Sploofus...{and} they just decided not to tell me."

Justin stated that the program was incurring $1,000/mo in expenses just for the servers and that he was paying the vast majority of it out of his pocket, but he would be unable to continue much longer.

"Right now it is do or die time for Sploofus. I am losing sleep trying to conceive ways to keep things afloat," Justin said. "If I can get more people to join, and more GOLD memberships, things should level out. Until then, I am in a bad spot because I have no money to issue prizes."

The press release issued by Sploofus on November 18, 2004, stated, "When asked about the decision to become the exclusive sponsor for Sploofus.com, Kathy Galvan, co-founder of the Federal Employee Service Center, said 'We are very excited to sponsor a great website like Sploofus. We feel that everyone needs a break from the day to day grind, and Sploofus offers a wonderful diversion. We look forward to a long partnership with Sploofus.'”

That is, if by "long" you mean approximately 2 weeks, assuming Justin's statement that he had been unpaid by them for 60 days is true.

First off -- Shame on the Federal Employee Service Center. I sent them an email asking for their comment on this situation and will share it if they reply. But the fact is, they should have been more conscientious in their business dealings and at least given Justin notice that they were pulling out as sponsors. Not sending payment is reneging on a contract, and refusing to even discuss it with Justin is just poor business practice. Wish I could just NOT pay my Sears bill and then ignore them when they come calling and get off scot-free.

#2 -- The Sploofus business model may need a liiiiiiittle work. With all due respect to Mr. Morton, who is obviously a talented programmer with a great vision, perhaps the idea of having one sole sponsor is not such a good idea. I know, hindsight is 20/20, and had this company behaved ethically and at least given him some notice that they were ending their sponsorship, he might have been able to find an alternate sponsor. But how does that saying go, "Don't put all your eggs in one basket"? That way there'd be less sting if the (a) sponsor pulled out.

We have some wonderfully intelligent and inventive folks on this website. I'd like to ask everyone here to help brainstorm. What can be done to save this program?