Really interesting read, it's a weird feeling to 1) to see a very similar startup in the same space make "evil" choices you turned down and 2) frustratingly see them be more successful than you. I'm working on a startup in Vermont, which has a similar amount of startup acclaim as Huddersfield, competing in a space where there's about 2 million Y-Combinator-backed, ex-Googler, triple Stanford-Harvard-MIT dropout founded Silicon Valley startups with tons of money that want to build something viral that at least pulls a ton of user's data.

I would be interested to hear more of your takeaways, like what you would do differently and if you think you do have a shot at going against those well-funded giants.