Section I: Crafting the core value prop

What is Juno?

Juno is a two-in-one crypto and banking platform that serves individuals in the United States. Juno was founded in 2020 by Varun Deshpande, Siddharth Verma, and Ratnesh Ray, 3 crypto native builders. They had previously built Nuo Protocol which was a top 5 DeFi project in 2018, having more TVL than current leaders such as Uniswap and Aave.

Across seed and series A rounds, Juno has raised over $23 million so far from top investors like Sequoia, Polychain, GIC, Dragonfly Capital, and prominent angel investors including Balaji Srinivasan, Sandeep Nailwal, and Joseph Lumin (Co-founder of Ethereum) among others.

What is Juno solving?

Traditionally, going from cash to crypto and back has been a slow and laborious process, especially in the United States with financial rails that take 1-3 days for payments. Additionally, some crypto exchanges enforce a 5-7 holding period on crypto withdrawals. This meant that going from salary to crypto in your wallet could take 7-10 days 😵

Time was one problem. Another problem was that banks would block customers if they sent money to crypto exchanges like Coinbase because they deemed it to be too risky. Not only would they not be able to fund their crypto accounts, they would also lose access to their hard earned dollars. This is just one example out of thousands of such complaints across multiple banks.

This problem further extended when users wanted to cash out their crypto to pay their bills, pay their mortgages, pay their landlords, etc. Going from crypto in a crypto exchange to cash in a checking account was time consuming and led to a risk of being blocked.

Juno solved all these problems by building one app for cash and crypto. Juno is available on iOS, Android, and Web. Juno provides

• a cash account for their users from which they can pay bills, mortgages, rent, etc. using ACH and Wire transfers.
• a crypto account so that they can go from cash to crypto within the same interface and then withdraw it to their self custodial wallet instantly. Juno supports over 20 blockchains.
• a debit card for them to use their cash on daily purchases. Purchases on certain brands earn 5% cashback.

Great, a problem exists. But is the market big enough for us to go after it and who are the competitors in this space? Let's find out 👇

The Market

As of August 2023, revenue in the crypto market in the US was projected to reach $23.2 billion in 2024 and $32.9 billion in 2028. With the recent approval of Bitcoin ETFs in the US, this number will likely go higher.

Capturing even 0.1% of the projected revenue will lead to a revenue of $23 million for Juno in 2024 alone. With Juno's annual gross revenue ending at ~$6M in 2023, the $23 million number looks very achievable.

From January 1 to September 30, 2023, Coinbase (the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the US) reported revenues of $2.15 billion with $936.94 million of that coming from consumer crypto transactions.

source: Coinbase earnings report Nov 2023

The competiton

Who are we competing against for a slice of this massive revenue pie?

*based on market data in February 2023

We currently only compete with Coinbase in the United States since majority of the other players have shut down or gone bankrupt in the United States.

However, Coinbase does not offer the core banking capabilities that Juno offers. This Twitter thread is a clear validation of Juno's value proposition.

What customers can do on Juno that they can't do on Coinbase

Now that we know what Juno is and the potential market size, who are Juno's ideal users?

What is the JTBD of the brand?

Juno is a new product in the existing crypto onramp/offramp category. We have to solve for differentiation, distinctiveness, and trust.

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Ideal Customers of Juno

ICP prioritization framework

Prioritization order:

🥇First Priority - ICP 2 - Opportunist

🥈Second Priority - ICP 1 - Onchain OG

🥉Third Priority -ICP 3 - Offramper

The Prioritization Explained

• The Opportunist will have the fastest adoption, has the highest frequency of use case, and will be the easiest to find across channels
• • The opportunist is always looking for ways to make their life easier. They are always on the lookout for upcoming crypto projects and ways to access different crypto networks easier and faster.
• The Offramper has the lowest frequency of use case (1-2 times per month) and will be difficult to find since not many people get paid in crypto as of now

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Core Value Prop of Juno

For crypto natives in the US who need to go onchain, Juno is the fastest way to go from cash to crypto

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Section II: Finding Juno's brand wedge

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Category Insights and top problems

• Crypto exchanges in the United States are great for the average crypto investor but too slow for the crypto native who wants to go onchain quickly. They enforce a 7-10 day holding period on crypto withdrawals
• Banks block/freeze user accounts for transferring some of their hard earned money to crypto exchanges

User problems

• Users are missing out on onchain opportunities due to the long holding periods enforced by crypto exchanges
• Fast crypto onramps are too expensive

User non-negotiables

• Access to their funds as quickly as possible
• Not losing access to their bank account

User negotiables

• Users are okay with fewer cryptocurrencies as long as they can onramp to the main networks

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User Aspirations

• They want to increase their wealth while keeping their money away from centralized forces

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Brand wedge

If category perception is that crypto exchanges are slow & my user feels that they're missing out on onchain opportunities, then my brand will solve for users getting crypto in their self custody wallets instantly

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Brand look

I am trustworthy but I am not boring

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Brand voice

I am encouraging but not salesy

Brand behaviour

I embrace crypto native values but I will stay compliant with US regulations

Section III: Applying the brand on and off the product

Main landing page

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Pros:

• Core value prop is highlighted well
• User problems are addressed and the brand colours are trustworthy

Potential improvements:

• Not enough distinctiveness and trust incorporated in the landing page
• Image should be a differentiator rather than a product image

App Store Screenshots

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Pros:

• Trustworthy and strong brand colours
• Encouraging and straightforward copy

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