First 1000 - Juno: The Costco of Student loans
Hello folks 👋, I was bitter because of how normal it was for an educational institution to charge me the equivalent of ~46,000 hours of white-collar labor in my home country, all to read a couple of case studies and having the honor of getting a reply from a bunch of people on Linkedin who share the same mascots on their profiles as that of my respective university. What was more ridiculous was how I was expected to navigate this foreign American financial ecosystem and come up with an absurd amount of money in a grand total of 28 days. For reasons behind my comprehension, no school official would dare point me in the right direction, or god forbid, give me any insights on how to do so as an international student. The most common answer I received was to “consult with my local banks.” Disclaimer: I ended up cold emailing the founders & joining the team around 10 months ago. However this is not a sponsored postAt this point, I am sure there are many questions floating around that beautiful brain of yours. Why is their story worth sharing? Over the past 53 issues, I have written about go-to-market strategies for almost every kind of company. One of the few types of companies I am yet to write about is partnerships-driven companies. Today this is about to change 😬. Partnership-driven companies are unique in the sense that they don’t just need to create a competitive advantage; they need to create a competitive advantage that their partners are ill-suited to replicate in the near and future term. And this is hard to pull off.
+every company that Rocket Internet ever launched. Group buying in theory is demand aggregation. If you manage to combine a lot of small transactions and pool them into one big order, you will have more power over whoever sits on the other side of the transaction. Juno applies that same concept of demand aggregation to private student loans. As an individual borrowing money for school, you have little leverage over your lender. However, if you band together with thousands or even tens of thousands of other students all looking for student loans, the group will likely be able to negotiate better rates than if each individual went directly to the lender. Juno - the early daysAs with many of the companies we covered, Juno started off in the dorm room…(well actually a little bit before that 🤓). Nikhil and Chris, two incoming MBA students at Harvard Business School, heard about the concept of group buying for students loans from another fellow incoming student who explained how this was common practice in his home country. In a true Hail Mary fashion Nikhil decided to give this concept a shot. He would reach out in the group chat with other incoming Harvard students and ask them if they want to be part of an experiment of him negotiating student loans on behalf of everyone who is interested
When Juno first tried to build a community around negotiating student loans, they borrowed a little bit of both. The had an identity aspect of being exclusive to “top MBA programs” and they rallied people around a clear goal of getting lower rates. This remix of the two translated in:
With trust + purpose baked into the DNA of their community, Nikhil and Chris would be able to galvanize that early cohort of 70ish users, to go out and recruit more users to join their efforts. They did that through 3 ways:
Armed with only a facebook group community and a google form, Nikhil and Chris were able to build a negotiation group of over 700 students across 10 business school, strike a deal with a lending partner all within a 2 months period. Out of the 700 members that joined this negotiation group, 50%+ ended up taking the Juno negotiated deal. Juno TodayEver since that first negotiation they ran, Juno has replicated the model in loan refinancing , health insurance for international student, and expanded beyond MBAs to negotiate on behalf of Undergrads and Grads. They run the same process across all these verticals of grouping together a large number of students, going out to the market and negotiating on behalf of everyone. and this is the story of how Juno got their first 700 customers, Imagine the only time I write about a company in your domain you accidentally miss it because of some random email algorithm 💩. |
Older messages
👟 Nike
Sunday, August 1, 2021
The story of a 7 year pivot, a hostile takeover, and behind the scenes on the creation of one of the most beloved brands in the world. The Nike case study is the best one yet!
📊 Mixpanel
Monday, July 26, 2021
For all the people building B2B companies out there
👯TikTok
Sunday, July 18, 2021
Hello folks 👋, First of all, I would like to welcome the 2023 new members to our little family 👨🏽🍼 since last week. First 1000 is this close(👌) to 20000 members. Today's case study is on Tiktok.
Sunday, July 11, 2021
establishing trust through fake users, launching before you are ready and everything you didn't know about how Reddit got their very first customers.
🍫 Mid-Day Squares: Not Your Average Chocolate
Tuesday, July 6, 2021
and how they "Kardashian-ed"their way to getting the first 1000 customers
You Might Also Like
12 hours to go! 🐣
Friday, April 19, 2024
Catch the super early bird rates before they expire! View this email in your browser. 1200 x 380 (Desktop & Tablet) (8) Hey there, There are just 12 hours to go before Summit Summit ticket prices
Why I Switched My Blog to Ghost (and Why You Might Love It Too)
Friday, April 19, 2024
Tired of slow, clunky blogging platforms? I was too! Find out how Ghost changed my blogging life (and my company!), and why it might be the upgrade you need. Salehin Khan Salehin Khan Why I Switched My
Latvia's startup financing gets creative
Friday, April 19, 2024
We visit Riga to explore Latvia's tech scene, layoffs at Stability AI and why climate tech's latest phase will be built on debt. View in browser Notion flagship logo final Good morning there,
How Meta is paving the way for synthetic social networks
Friday, April 19, 2024
Five ways of thinking about Llama 3, its latest large language model Platformer Platformer How Meta is paving the way for synthetic social networks By Casey Newton • 18 Apr 2024 View in browser View in
SaaSHub Weekly - Apr 18
Thursday, April 18, 2024
SaaSHub Weekly - Apr 18 Featured and useful products Ant Design logo Ant Design An enterprise-class UI design language and React implementation with a set of high-quality React components, one of best
[SaaS Club] Scaling a SaaS Community Platform to $19M ARR
Thursday, April 18, 2024
Hey Reader Let's connect on LinkedIn! Follow me to stay in touch! Here's a quick round up of what's been going on at SaaS Club: 🎧 Podcast Circle: Scaling a Community Platform to $19 Million
The Most Profitable Software Company in Q1 2024
Thursday, April 18, 2024
Tomasz Tunguz Venture Capitalist If you were forwarded this newsletter, and you'd like to receive it in the future, subscribe here. The Most Profitable Software Company in Q1 2024 image Ethereum
Clippa and PrivacyBox
Thursday, April 18, 2024
A browser extension for PrivacySandbox control with passive income BetaList BetaList Daily Clippa Create short clip videos for social media in a few clicks PrivacyBox A browser extension for
I think I figured it out
Thursday, April 18, 2024
Read this in 1 min, 2 sec I was scrolling through our YouTube channel last night... And something finally clicked. Why are all these founders we interviewed successful? What do they know that others
stealth startups in industrials
Thursday, April 18, 2024
intel on hidden gems within the market inside Hi there, Never miss an outlier. Check out this list of target companies in industrials. These startups are hidden gems within the space. See them here The