[00:00:28] Jay: . Hi everyone. Welcome to The First Customer Podcast. My name's Jay Aigner. Today I am lucky enough to be joined by Marco Benitez. He is the CEO and founder of Rook. What is Rook Marco?

Tell me brother, how are you?

[00:00:40] Marco: Doing well, Jay, thanks so much for this time. Very excited to be here. And yeah, I'm very keen to, explain our, you know, to see, my, path and all the things that we are building. I.

[00:00:53] Jay: What's the pitch on Rook? what's the elevator pitch on Rook? What is it?

[00:00:57] Marco: Yeah, basically, and Rook, what we do, we enable any brand to use these wearable devices.

So basically insurance companies, digital health platforms, remote patient monitoring, want to track the patient's 24 7 hours. The best way to track these patients is through these me, these wearable devices. So the problem is. Those companies have to integrate one by one. Let's say the Garmin, Polar, Garmin, SUNO, Huawei with everything, right?

So instead of integrate everything, they only have to integrate my API, and then they will have access to more than 300 wearables. We manage all the data. We standardized, normalized, harmonized information so the clients can receive very clean and structured information.

[00:01:40] Jay: Beautiful. So do you just have like wearables all over you at all times?

Do you just like every wearable, I mean, it's a funny question, but also, I guess kind of a serious question. Do you have to own all these devices and like, you know, have you used, most of the wearables are out there since you work with a bunch of them?

[00:01:57] Marco: Uh, yeah, sort of. First of all, since the beginning, I love wearables.

I am a really big geek of wearables. I have before my, the first wearable was with Polar, for example, and was just a track, a step track. And I love them because it's very interesting all the patterns that you can start building on top of that. So, yes, I'm using it all the wearables because I love it, but at the same time it's very useful because my team is doing all the magic behind and we, I'm the perfect customer for them because I can give a lot of data and then they can do, you know, create different type of things with the information.

[00:02:37] Jay: Love that. What is your, and I don't wanna get you in trouble here, but what's your favorite wearable, what do you think provides the most value? Right. Because, I mean, I do the watch and I know people got the ring and all the stuff. Like what, what's something that has brought, excuse me, has brought value to your day-to-day life?

You know, as a wearable, what's the biggest one?

[00:02:55] Marco: I will say it depends on your lifestyle. For example, for me, Ōura, it's really interesting if you want to go deep on your, you know, sleep data for example. And it's really interesting now that they've received also investment from Dexcom. I'm very keen to see what's going on the next steps for them because, you know, Dexcom being this big, like big pharma.

Device, medical device company investing in Ōura. I'm very interesting to see the next steps. So Ōura is one of them. Whoop is really interesting because I do a lot of workouts so I can track myself 24 7 hours without taking out the wearable. So I love it. Apple Watch, I'm very big fan of the information, how they deliver the data.

It's really interesting. It's my first time I can see this. It's like, receiving information from a medical device.

[00:03:53] Jay: Mm-hmm.

[00:03:53] Marco: Um, so it's impressive how you are receiving the data, on the back in the backend. So the only problem is a little bit big, but still it's really good. It's, It's a very good watch at the same time, and it's an extension from your iPhone.

it depends, on your lifestyle, definitely. But I mean, Polar is great. Garmin is huge. The eight sleep, I have the eight sleep in my bed. And you can control your temperature. it's not so accurate with the data that you receive from the, from everything. But still it's really good. I love it for the temperature.

[00:04:27] Jay: Mm-hmm.

[00:04:27] Marco: My wife can have, you know, half very hot. My side is very cold, very cold. Right. So it's really good.

[00:04:35] Jay: No, I like that. Yeah. I mean, I think you kind of. Highlighted how I feel about wearables, which is like, to your point, the data may not be like scientific level accuracy, but it's good guardrails to kind of like keep you into good patterns and good health and good things like that.

So I love that. well, where did you grow up, man? I mean, I noticed a little bit of an accent. I don't think you're from Miami, but maybe you are. where did you grow up and did that have any impact on you being an entrepreneur?

[00:05:02] Marco: Yeah, that's a really good question. Definitely. obviously I'm not from here, from the US I'm from Mexico.

I love Mexico, so it's, I born and raised in, in Mexico and, just living here the last two and a half years. in the US in Miami specifically. well, not Miami, near Miami. I live in Naples, which is like one hour and a half from Miami and in Mexico. It's really interesting. I think right now it's very hot.

For example, this is my second startup. My first startup was in 2003, so we were very young on those days. We were in the college and a startup was not even a worth. At least in Mexico, right here in the US was a completely different situation, was the booming of the.com and all these big startups, companies.

but things are moving, I think, in the right direction. Mexico is becoming even more hot for startups, ecosystems for investors, and I think there is a lot of very good things happening over there. My journey from US, from Mexico, or from Mexico to the US it's really interesting because for me it was, I want to build something really great and my passion, it's like, build something bigger than myself.

And, to prove that, one of my investors told me, okay, do you want to build something big? Come to the US and for me, it was like a challenge. And I said, yes, okay. I'm, if you invest me, I will move to the US with my whole family.

[00:06:28] Jay: Wow.

[00:06:29] Marco: Because I have my wife and my two kids. We sold everything that we have over there.

We have a house. Of course, my parents are over there. My mother-in-law, are over there, all my family, my friends, everyone is over there and start from the zero here in the US working hard, you know? But it's like, Really interesting life. I love it. It's, you have a lot of connections here. It's so big that you have huge opportunities.

I love Mexico again. It's beautiful. And I know a lot of people that they are like, great, told me like, why are you crazy? Why you are moving from Mexico right now? And for me it's really, it's a huge potential in the US it's a lot of things happening and even with the new government and with everything, I think.

When you have chaos, you can find new opportunities, so

[00:07:18] Jay: Oh yeah. it's really Love it. I agree. I love that. what, I mean, obviously as somebody who has had teams in Mexico and has teams in the Philippines and has teams other places, myself,what about the US market? Makes it so much better or so much, you know, more interesting?

Or is there just not enough tech companies in Mexico? Is the pay different, or like the rates and stuff that, like what is it that makes America other than just, you know, blanket like, oh yeah, there's a lot more companies here and there's opportunity. What? Like specifically about maybe the.

Economics of the United States or just the concentration of where those companies are in the United States? what about it is actually better or more, not better, but more enticing from an entrepreneurship perspective? \

[00:08:02] Marco: Yeah, I mean, I love US, really. Believe me. It's like, the market is so big.

You, the foundations are already built here in the US Now. It's like you, we are trying to solve specific things and because you are going to solve any specific things you have, again, a huge market. Not sure if I'm explaining myself, but for example, in Latin America, general speaking, we have infrastructure problems, right?

In, I don't know, in buildings, in telecommunications, in healthcare. so everyone is working towards those specific problems. But when you have, like in the US. Everything built, now you are going to the details, right?

[00:08:49] Jay: Right.

[00:08:49] Marco: And in the details you can see a huge market. So I love that part that you can be very specific and it's perfect.

For example, my solution, it's very specific for a specific market like insurance companies or remote patient monitoring on some wellness platforms. Here in the US I can find a lot of, you know, companies that are looking for my problem, like my solution. My product instead in Latin America, it's like, I can't find these type of clients or because they are looking for different problems.

[00:09:24] Jay: Right.

[00:09:25] Marco: So, for me it's makes a lot of sense to move to the US and find those clients that are looking for my specific, solution. That makes sense. Yeah, that's, yeah. Basically the, how can I answer your question?

[00:09:39] Jay: That's a good one. That's a good answer. And it does make a lot of sense that, the, you know, the wealth and the, luxury purchases as you would maybe call them, like, you know, some of these devices.

Probably a little more prevalent in the United States than some other places. And the ingenuity around that and those companies that like use that data, like you said, the big insurance companies and stuff probably take advantage of that more in the United States. So I found that very interesting. what was the first business you started, you mentioned two startups.

What was your first one?

[00:10:09] Marco: Yeah, the first startup we built, An algorithm for hospitals. So that algorithm help you to create a hospital. So in, we create a like huge program where you can put over there how many or which type of diseases you want to, attack. in which part of Latin America?

In which part of Mexico? And then the algorithm create like the infrastructure, how many doctors, how many beds, how, which type of medical devices, the name of all the brands of medical devices, and then. As an architect or as a, you know, project manager for these type of hospitals, they, it's facilitate to create everything.

So that's what we create. Before, again, we were very young. We were in the college and, From one day to another, a big hospital franchise vault, our technology.

[00:11:05] Jay: Nice. Well, I love, uh, the story. what,where did the idea from Rook come from for you guys? I mean, and tell me how you got your first customer.

[00:11:16] Marco: Yeah. in our case was at the very beginning we were focusing in a different business model. we were a fitness focused industry. we create a big platform for fitness clubs. So basically it was again, in data and then, we show in real time the efforts on calorie burn, you know, different type of biomarkers in front of the end users and in front of your coach in the fitness club.

So on those days we create also a, wearable. So we have a wearable before a heart rate monitor, wearable, and, another one for the arm. So we are biomedical engineers, so we love technology, we love to build things, and we find a way to create these two wearables and to start selling this product like a SaaS platform for different fitness industries.

Fitness club, sorry. Mainly all of our clients was, were in Mexico City and in the south of the US. When the pandemic hits, you know, everything change. In Mexico, at least, we saw a huge, you know, layoffs, you know, a lot of fitness clubs close the doors. So it was a very tough moment, I think, for everyone.

So we start to innovate. We started to ask to the end users, which type of wearables they want to use, because we saw that, no, not all of them want to use only our wearable, some of them were using the hard rate monitor, but also the Apple Watch and you started to hear more about whoop, so we found a couple of.

You know, a lot of people using Whoop and different, you know, Garmin and all of them. So we, we came with the idea to start to integrate the wearables on our own platform, and we saw the mess. We saw that the data came in a very different way to integrate all of them. It's very complicated. You need time, you need teams.

You need a lot of things at the same time just to track and pull the data from the end users. So that's how everything started. We in our own platform. Then we were in an event in Los Angeles and we had the opportunity to be with one, the CEO of one big insurance company. That was the game changer.

That was the. before and the after. That person in the dinner he told me like, Hey, we are trying to build a wellness platform and we have already that wellness platform, but it's, my team can in, can't integrate the wearables data because we are not so big in terms of the, of the developers and everyone is focused more on the, you know, different type of programs.

I look, I saw your solution and makes a lot of sense to integrate your capabilities in my own platform. Is there any way I can do it? And we said like a very good entrepreneurs, yes, you can do it. We only have to build an API solution because we have already the wearables integrated. And he told us, okay, I will pay for that.

And we were Okay. Okay. That's interesting. And no kidding. Next Monday, we were talking with the lawyers from the, that company making the contract and they pay on front to make this technology. And that's where we say, whoa, we have something here. Yeah. And then that idea, we submit the idea in Techstars in this accelerator program.

And immediately we were accepted and was a no brainer. And we were, okay, maybe we have something here and during the program we make this spinoff or we pivot everything. And I mean, probably was lucky. Maybe we found the lucky, I don't know. But that's how we started. And the first, the first client was a pay a payer and uh, with an insurance company.

[00:15:14] Jay: Beautiful. Do you think you would've made that pivot without COVID? 

[00:15:22] Marco: No. 

[00:15:23] Jay: You guys would still be making gym. Software basically. 

[00:15:27] Marco: Probably. Probably, probably, yes. 

[00:15:28] Jay: Spinner software? 

[00:15:30] Marco: Yeah, probably. Yes. Or hardware, maybe. so I mean, COVID for us was a very huge opportunity. Huge in different type of things. I always said, every single time you feel you ha you are in a chaos.

It's huge opportunity. You can build a lot of things. COVID first was a game changer because two main things. Also we are now, we are remote first company before everyone was in person. In, we have offices in Mexico and um. But when you are a remote first company, you have the opportunity to build huge and great teams no matter where they are.

and that's really big. Of course, you have to focus on the culture in a very different way. Yes. You will see other problems. Yes. But now you can, you know, hire people from, no matter from the south of Latin America, you can hire people in Africa, in Spain, in UK, in Canada, in US. So we have all of the places, people, and we love it.

That's the first thing that, you know, after COVID happens. And it was a huge opportunity. And second of course, we make this pivot, which for us works a lot. 

[00:16:47] Jay: Love that. Yeah. And so, who is your customer today compared to, who was your first paying customer? The one that you guys did the API for originally?

Has that, how has that changed over time? Or is it the same type of company? Who is your company you're going after today versus your first customer? 

[00:17:07] Marco: I think we are in the same path. Really help us to receive this. You know, this client was the best. I mean, in everything. They were very resilient. They were very, that they were dealing with a startup that you have a lot of issues and some, you know, glitches and problems and they were very patient.

but that's like a very. You, you don't find very easy these type of clients. Right. So they were the best. But that being said, at the very beginning, also, we started to look to the fitness industry because fitness industry for us was also our background in the previous business model. So we started to integrate at the very beginning in the fitness class.

Some of them they have already, you know. Some apps and it's easier just to integrate over there. Then we move to the fitness. Apps, uh, with the biggest one. And they started to use our technology at the very beginning for free because we were trying to identify exactly which type of, you know, datas and information they need.

And then we started to charge, some amounts. Then also, we move with the wellness programs that some of them are very incorporated with the insurance companies. So there is like a very interesting triangle between insurance companies, wellness platforms and corporates. So everything, it's integrated and they are looking for the best and they are looking for, you know, change behaviors in the employees.

Making incentives if they do work, workouts, if they are less stressed, if they, you know. Have a better nutrition, better health at the end of the day. And they give the same corporates, give some, incentives like day offs or the other half of the insurance policy, it's paid by the same insurance.

so over there we can, we found a very specific, you know, ICP, which is really great. Also because of the type of, you know, technology that we have, we are also working with remote patient monitoring, for example. We work with big pharma, even though that we are not targeting those clients, they're are looking for this API integration because at the end they are looking for wearables.

Wearables are becoming something more important every single time. You know, FDA. Receive FDA clearance, in different wearables and biomarkers. So I don't want to go very deep over there, or if you want, we can go, but at the end of the day, the first customer was an insurance company. Then we move a little bit to understand the fitness industry, and we identified that health industry, healthcare industry, and fitness industry.

There is an intersection, and the intersection is wellness. And wellness is, it's powerful. It's prevention. Everything around prevention. That's where we feel very comfortable today. 

[00:20:12] Jay: Love that. yeah, I mean, I guess the, next question is, You know, if you had to start it over tomorrow, same line of business API for, wellness and insurance.

you know, with the stuff you've learned, what would be step one for tomorrow if you had to go out, start a new company, you know, do this all over again. What's been the most important thing you've learned would be kind of the, you know, the match to get you started for the next round. 

[00:20:37] Marco: Having the team, I mean my co-founders is one of the best and the most important things that happen because, man, this is so difficult to build a startup.

It's so difficult. The, best thing that you can bring to the table is to have very good, a very good team. Doesn't matter that you have only one or two or three at the end of the day, is you are going to get marriage with all of them in the good and in the bads. So it's like, uh, it's very interesting and very important to have someone who can trust, because at the end of the day, you'll have very bad moments.

that's the first thing. 

[00:21:23] Jay: and you're spending, it'll figure out you're spending more time with them than your own family. Family. Oh yeah. It's a lot of, you gotta have a good relationship with those people. 

[00:21:32] Marco: 100%. I mean, I am. Eight, 12 hours probably with them connected via call or in person in different events.

I, I spent or invest a lot of time with them. So, I mean, it's quite important. Again, it is the best thing also. 

[00:21:53] Jay: I love that. Tell me about partnerships. we are. huge fans of ecosystem led growth with, especially like in an agency, a services agency, kind of getting in partnerships makes a lot of sense, right?

Like you can offer things to existing customers of other, how do you guys view partnerships? Do you have partnerships and, where do you kind of draw a line between partnerships and clients? You know, 'cause you could probably consider some clients, partners and vice versa, but who's a partner for you guys?

What type of partnership stuff do you guys kind of invest in as a company? 

[00:22:26] Marco: Yeah. For us, network is everything. let me start saying that network, it's one of the best and most important things for us because again, the nature of our technology, we are an API in the backend and also in, I want to say that way in the front end with the people.

We have to connect with people and do different type of things, so for us. Partnerships are very important. at the very beginning when I came to the US I didn't have, I didn't have network, nothing, not even partners, nothing. I was alone with my family trying to build something from scratch.

So my best partner in that moment was Techstars, was my other. You know, in the same cohort, we were another eight founders in the same cohort. They were my family, they were my everything. Also, my advisors, we have in Techstars, something called Mentor Madness. Mentor Madness was like a 100 calls in one, two weeks.

I don't remember very well. And also the advisors became my family. So they helped me to open new doors. Only those guys helped me to raise my first two millions. So I mean, that's the power of partnership. That's the power of create a network. That's the power of create meaningful relationships. So yes, partners for me are everything.

Now the ones who are helping us to bring more, you know, clients or partners or whatever are other companies that already have my technology, because once we are integrated with them, they are not only receiving, you know. The data and the API solution, they also receive people that are willing to make more big, their own company and, revenue and ROI or I, sorry.

so it's like, they receive everything from our side. So I'm people's driven. 

[00:24:33] Jay: Beautiful. Love that. So, yes. I have one more question for you. Non-business related non. Wearables related just about Marco. if you could do anything on Earth and you knew you couldn't fail, what would it be?

Come on, man. I know you got something good for me. I can tell. 

[00:25:01] Marco: Oh, man. I mean, there's too many things I mean. Parenting is also something that I really love. I mean, it's difficult. It's very, 

[00:25:12] Jay: it is very difficult. I've gotten that answer a lot as like, be the best parent I can be. 

[00:25:18] Marco: Um, yeah, parenting, I think 

[00:25:21] Jay: wanted to do though that like you're, you know, that you would just, you know, uh, scale Mount Everest or jump out of a plane or like anything kind of that you would want to do that you're afraid to do today.

[00:25:34] Marco: I mean. I love to build business. I love to build, I'm a builder, so probably for me is do the next. You know, company, I want to solve this company. At some point I want to be do another business, and then another business, and then another business. I love it. The sensation, the stress, the, you know, all the heat that you feel all day and in one day you have all day.

all the feelings you are in one moment you are very happy, then you're very sad, then you are again stressed, then you are on the top of the world and then you crush everything. So for me, that will be, one of the things that I will love to continue doing. 

[00:26:17] Jay: Beautiful. All right, man. you're awesome Marco.

if people wanna find out more about you specifically reach out and talk about something they heard today, how do they do that? And if they wanna, check out Rook, how do they do that? 

[00:26:28] Marco: Yeah, we are in all platforms. if you want to know a little bit more about Rook it's try rook.io is try rook. T-R-Y-R-O-O k.io.

you will find us also in LinkedIn also myself, Marco Benitez in LinkedIn and all the platforms. You will find me the same way. so please reach out. Very happy to, hear from you and find ways where we can be useful. 

[00:26:58] Jay: Beautiful. Love it, man. All right. Well, you're awesome man. We wish you the best of luck.

Let's stay in touch and you have a good rest of your week. All right, Marco. 

[00:27:06] Marco: Likewise. Take care and thank you so much, man. 

[00:27:09] Jay: Thank you. 

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