This is a welcome initiative speaking from a personal and professional perspective, and as CEO of an independent search engine; we are all too well aware of the power of money and defaults.
This immediately comes to mind as akin to the Signal vis-a-vis WhatsApp etc. Here there is an obvious reason to use Signal and a well-understood proposition. What might it be for Ladybird? And how will you differentiate?
To be honest, we are so far behind everyone else today that we're 100% focused on catching up technically, and not thinking much about differentiation. :)
That said, I do think we'll find ways to differentiate given our uncommon situation with no ties to the advertising industry. This gives us the ability to experiment with privacy measures more aggressive than others may be comfortable with for fear of losing funding, for example.